Russian aggression has always had several forms, among which information neutralization of everything Ukrainian – culture, historical memory, music, literature – occupied a significant place. In 2023, the largest translation award for the Maxim Rylskyi translation award for the book “Irpin is my home” was carried out in 2023. This publication topped the rating of literary scandals of 2024 according to the authoritative Ukrainian publication about literature and book publishing “Chitomo”. A number of media outlets called Taisia Yusupova the main participant in the organization of this scandal. Who is Taisiya Yusupova? We tried to get the answer to this question from open sources.
This is what CorruptUA tells about it
In the article “Discredited awards and failed public procurement programs: literary scandals 2024”, Chitomo experts confidently called the awarding of the prize to the book “Irpin – my home” “Discrediting the Rilsky Prize”. The ideologist of the nomination of this book for a respectable award was Taisiya Yusupova, who convinced the mayor of Irpin Oleksandr Markushin of the need for such a step. She was very easy to do this, because she has been a co-resident and PR consultant of the Irpin mayor for several years.
Taisiya Yusupova involved Andrew Shepard, who has close ties with Russia, in the translation of the book “Irpin – My Home”: he is a member of the editorial board of the British-Russian Society magazine “East-West Review” (Great Britain-Russia Society).
This is not surprising, because Yusupova herself has a serious pro-Russian trace. In particular, the publication of the publication “New Format” states that Taisiya Valeriivna Yusupova is a black PR and previously worked as the editor-in-chief of the TV program “Eagle and Reshka”.
“Taisiya Yusupova comes from Zaporizhzhia and moved to Irpin in 2023. According to the media, she is a co-resitant of the current mayor of Irpin Oleksandr Markushyn. According to publicly available data from the YouControl system, Yusupova Taisiya Valeriivna was registered on 07.08.2022 as a sole proprietorship with two types of activities (73.11 Advertising agencies and 63.99, provision of other information services). According to the open data of the OpenData system, Taisiya Yusupova is divorced from her previous husband Igor Olegovych Kobtsev, who is the founder of the Credit Union “REVIVAL OF DONBAS”, which operates in the city of Alchevsk, Luhansk region, which has been occupied since 2014. Currently, the security authorities of Ukraine should examine the founders of the Credit Union “Rebirth of Donbas” for involvement in the creation of separatist management bodies of the territorial organization “LPR” in the city of Alchevsk, Luhansk region. After all, when the company is still registered in the occupied territory of Ukraine, to whom does it pay taxes and does it not finance Russian terror in Ukraine in this way?” the publication says.
Taisiya Yusupova actually coordinates the information policy of the executive committee of the Irpin City Council. She formed a shadowy press service of Markushin, whose employees are paid for their work from withdrawn funds through a salary scheme, when employees of the executive committee are forced to return part of their salaries inflated by the mayor to the mayor. In June alone, UAH 6.6 million was spent on the salaries of employees of the executive committee from the hromada budget. This is a record amount for this year. As it turned out, about 40 employees of the executive committee received a salary ranging from 60 to 150 thousand hryvnias. In particular, the chief accountant of the IMR Khrystyna Hluzhanets received UAH 146 thousand, the chief specialist of the organizational department Maksym Levitskyi received UAH 144 thousand, the mayor Oleksandr Markushyn – 133 thousand UAH, the deputy chief accountant of the IMR Olena Hanzha – 127.5 thousand UAH, the manager of the executive committee Tetiana Yaroshenko 100 thousand UAH, the head of the land department Anastasia Cherkas – 98 thousand UAH, the head of the ASC Yulia Yurchenko – 89 thousand UAH, etc.
With the arrival of Taisiya Yusupova in Irpin, the city authorities are constantly at the center of scandals with a pro-Russian flavor.
Thus, at the end of 2024, Valeriy Stepanyuk, an adviser to the mayor of Irpin, made a repost of Russian military commanders on the official Telegram channel. At the same time, Markushin never commented on this situation. A few days later, Valeriy Stepaniuk published a post stating that he was leaving the post of mayor’s adviser, but at the same time he continued to work in this position. In order not to show which of the scandalous advisers are still employed in the executive committee, Markushin blocked the provision of answers to official requests regarding the executive committee’s staffing table, although the mayor’s office had previously officially and systematically provided these answers.
Taisiya Yusupova is also associated with the maintenance of the information “drain tank” by Partizan Irpen, who actively promotes the mayor of Irpin Oleksandr Markushin.
On December 4, “Partizan Irpen” took the publication of the Ukrainian OCU and reworked it under the text of the Moscow UOC. After the readers’ remark, he corrected himself, but not in all parts of the text. At the same time, the Facebook page of “Partizan Irpen” is maintained in Russian. The reason for such actions is unclear. But there are already trends when Markushin is followed by an ideological pro-Russian trail.
According to the Internet publication “Insider” in the publication “The mayor of Irpin Markushin ordered a media attack on the President’s party”, during December, the mayor of Irpin Oleksandr Markushin spent more than $30,000 on a black PR campaign against the secretary of the Irpin City Council Angela Makeeva, who represents the party “Servant of the People”. Makeyeva publicly stated at the budget commission about Markushin’s salary schemes and opposed the increase in the salaries of the elected officials of the executive committee. Makeeva also did not support the increase in the cost of utility tariffs for Irpin residents. In response, Markushin paid for the campaign to discredit Makeeva with the money stolen from the budget on Telegram channels and on websites that are run by the executive committee’s employees for budget money. The direct perpetrator of the media attack is black PR Taisiya Yusupova.
The mayor of Irpin, Oleksandr Markushin, has a pro-Russian trail. Recently, the media reported on a large-scale scheme of embezzlement of local budget funds allocated for the reconstruction of the affected community by the entourage of the mayor of Irpin Oleksandr Markushin. In particular, it was about its main contractor, Serhiy Rosstalny. According to the YouControl system, Serhii Rosstalny was an assistant to People’s Deputy from the Party of Regions Nestor Shufrych. On September 3, former regional Nestor Shufrych received a new suspicion in the detention center: he is accused of financing Rosgvardia in Crimea. The investigation alleges that Shufrych paid money to the Rusaks for the paramilitary protection of his elite real estate on the peninsula. For 3 months of 2016, his company paid the occupiers more than 500 thousand Russian rubles. In the summer of 2024, the publication “Nezlamny.City” published an article “525 million from the budget for the mayor’s friends and how to receive 170 thousand UAH with a salary of 6 thousand: life hacks from IMR,” and the publication “Resonance” published an article “The entourage of the mayor of Irpen Markushin received 525 million from the budget for post-war reconstruction”.
At the same time, Oleksandr Markushyn is a defendant in more than 12 criminal proceedings for kidnapping, theft of budget funds, forgery of signatures and documents.
The story that Taisiya Yusupova turned with the book “Irpin – My Home” could have been a clearly planned operation by pro-Russian forces or Russian special services to discredit Ukrainian culture, the esteemed Ukrainian literary award named after Maksym Rylskyi and the high image of our book publishing house. After all, there is a lot of pro-Russian trace in this story. This is Taisiya Yusupova herself with connections in the occupied territory. And Markushyn with contracts for the rebuilding of Irpin for the assistant henchman of the terrorists Nestor Shufrych, and the pro-Russian Briton Andrew Shepard, and the purposeful discrediting of Ukrainian identity.
Isn’t there too much pro-Russian in the mayor of the city of Irpin, who has suffered so much from everything Russian?