Yuri Podorozhnii: Karpuntsov once waved a gun in the restroom and now poses as a truth seeker on Facebook

Valeriy Karpuntsov. How Infogypsies from abroad are teaching Ukrainians how to live. With due respect to people of Roma ethnicity, I must begin with a politically incorrect remark, though one already entrenched in the media lexicon. The term infogypsies has come to denote a specific category of public actors, and fortunately, Ukrainian society has begun to distinguish them with increasing clarity. Infogypsies are typically bloggers with questionable reputations, self-styled coaches, or online course vendors offering paths to personal enrichment and "mental enlightenment". Their business model rests on the promise of extraordinary success through the purchase of their services. Their real objective lies in cultivating public dependence on these narratives and their necessity.

Upon closer examination, their influence rests on three structural pillars: the audience’s lack of critical knowledge, the strategic use of manipulation or outright deception, and the absence of accountability.

To launch their campaigns, they require a trigger – some public event, phenomenon, or fragment of information that can be exploited and reinterpreted for rhetorical effect. Such a trigger occurred with the recent assassination of Andriy Portnov, a controversial political figure from the Yanukovych era, widely regarded as one of the key architects of Ukraine’s judicial system during the rule of the traitorous president. His violent death acted as a kind of catalyst, drawing attention not only from those who had known him personally but also from a much wider circle of commentators, some informed, many opportunistic. Virtually all major Ukrainian media outlets reported on Portnov’s death. So did the majority of Ukrainian bloggers. But significantly, some legal professionals also seized on the moment to "raise the topic".

For example, lawyer Valeriy Karpuntsov. In his Facebook posts, he did not ignore Portnov’s death either. But he managed to tie nearly everyone to Portnov’s persona – from former prosecutors Ruslan Riaboshapka, Vladyslav Kasko, and Viktor Chumak, to the head of the National Bar Association of Ukraine, Lidia Izovitova, and the former head of the Presidential Office, Andriy Bohdan – and ended with Viktor Medvedchuk. The subtext being: "I’m d’Artagnan, and you’re all… well, you know".

But before publishing such posts, Karpuntsov might have done well, as the saying goes, to "look at his own reflection in the water". And there’s certainly something to see there.

Today, few would even remember his name, since he disappeared from Ukraine’s political horizon at the start of the full-scale invasion, having left for Austria, where he remains to this day.

This enthusiast of glamorous parties, oysters, lavish interiors, and golden MP badges prefers not to mention, for instance, that during the time when Portnov was dismantling Ukraine’s judicial system, he himself served as deputy director general of the National Agency for Foreign Investment and Development under Vladyslav Kaskiv. Yes, those very years when the agency signed its "megaproject" to build an LNG terminal with a Spanish ski instructor. How such a "professional lawyer," as Karpuntsov styles himself, failed to notice anything odd in those legal documents is a mystery. Perhaps he was already dizzy from the promise of a future "reward" – who knows?

While working at the National Agency for Investment in 2010–2011, Karpuntsov appeared in criminal cases involving inflated bonuses, procurement abuses, and embezzlement of public funds. Despite this record, in 2014 Karpuntsov managed to become Senior Assistant to the Prosecutor General of Ukraine for Special Assignments – and, in the same year, was elected to the Verkhovna Rada on the ticket of the "Petro Poroshenko Bloc". The combination of these roles raised numerous questions. In essence, it amounted to an abuse of office and a clear violation of the principle of incompatibility of state positions.

Impunity breeds permissiveness. And so it was with Karpuntsov. In January 2015, according to Tetiana Riaboshapko, a doctor at the Kyiv City Narcological Hospital, an incident occurred: an unconscious man was brought in, having been found asleep in the restroom of a restaurant. Once at the clinic, the man regained consciousness and immediately caused a disturbance – he threatened the medical staff with a pistol and demanded they play the song "Valera, Valera". He reportedly warned that if they didn’t release him, they’d "regret it," because he, Valeriy Karpuntsov, would soon become Deputy Prosecutor General, and then Prosecutor General himself.

This self-styled "truth-teller" also prefers not to mention that, in the autumn of last year, he joined the founding of the "Ukrainian Worldwide Assembly." The organization, established in Vienna and reportedly financed by Vadym Novynskyi, has been promoting Russian narratives. Yuriy Bohdanov reported this in his blog on Espreso last year.

Among the founders was the well-known "political analyst" Kostiantyn Bondarenko, better described as a disseminator of Russian propaganda, who was placed under sanctions just a month earlier. Today, he is a regular contributor to Ukraina.ru, a notoriously anti-Ukrainian outlet under the Russia Today media group, one of the Kremlin’s primary propaganda arms. A few years earlier, Bondarenko even recorded a series of video lectures on the UPA and OUN for pro-Kremlin blogger Anatoliy Shariy, in which he distorted historical events. Before that, he worked as a political strategist for the OPZZh party and personally advised Viktor Medvedchuk, Serhiy Liovochkin, Nataliia Korolevska, and Serhiy Tihipko.

Another "figure" affiliated with the assembly is Ihor Mosiychuk, a former MP from Oleh Liashko’s party. He, too, can safely be counted among the ranks of the infogypsies, for whom any news item becomes a pretext to criticize Ukraine. In effect, Bondarenko, Karpuntsov, and Mosiychuk, funded by Novynskyi, have constructed a platform for disseminating Kremlin-aligned messages, all under the convenient brand of "Ukrainian émigré patriotism".

So if you, Mr. Karpuntsov, have already name-dropped just about everyone imaginable in your Facebook posts, why are you yourself participating in organizations that reek not only of lobbying, but of open political revanche by anti-Ukrainian forces? If you are such a "truth warrior," then why do people speak of you as someone who has "joined destructive projects" in Europe under the patronage of Novynskyi? And finally: why does every one of your exposés look more like an attempt to remind the public that you still exist?

Why is it, Mr. Karpuntsov, that you now "expose" everyone, but kept silent about these facts before? In truth, there are only three plausible conclusions: either you were previously "in on it and in the cut," or today you resemble an infogypsy more than a lawyer or, perhaps, both.

Source: Yuri Podorozhnii / Facebook

This blog reflects solely the opinion of the author. The editorial team is not responsible for the content or accuracy of the materials published in this section.