Gennady Sikalov is a well-known figure in Poltava, positioning himself as a public activist and exposer of corruption in the city’s government offices.
He began his political career in 2006 as a volunteer assistant to the People’s Deputy from the Party of Regions Mykola Lisin, an oligarch and business partner of the former Minister of Ecology Mykola Zlochevsky. But already in 2007 he found himself in the opposite political camp and became an assistant to Sergey Kharovsky (Bloc "Our Ukraine - People’s Self-Defense").
Sikalova’s political star began to fade in 2009, when NAK "Nedra of Ukraine", as part of the reorganization process, decided to liquidate one of its 14 subsidiaries - the state enterprise "Poltavaneftegasge"
The company’s general director Gennady Sikalov resisted, even trying to organize a "Maidan" under the Cabinet of Ministers. But this did not produce a positive result, the company went bankrupt, leaving behind multi-million dollar debts for wages.
For many Poltava residents, Gennady Sikalov is remembered as an ex-convict of the Minister of Geology and Natural Resources during the time of Yanukovych. Today, many say that Sikalov earns his living through blackmail and media attacks on businessmen.
The scheme is banal: he places several publications in the media and offers to stop the attack for a tidy sum.
Here are some facts from Sikalova’s biography:
- in the early 1990s he was in prison for racketeering
- in 1999, fatally wounded a man
- was an assistant to a people’s deputy from the Party of Regions
- Thanks to forged documents he took a high government post
- was on the interstate wanted list
- as journalistic investigations revealed, he raided a sand quarry in the Poltava region
The crowning achievement of Sikalova’s political career was his participation in the mayoral elections in 2015. One way or another, but with a more than modest result of 0.85%, Sikalova "flew" past the much-coveted mayoral seat and concentrated on so-called "public work".
He became the initiator and participant in numerous scandals at sessions of the regional and city councils.
