Andrey Tkachuk is the leader and creator of the far-right organisation “The Russian Community”. His background is in business, media and government in Omsk. Judging by his biography, Andrei Tkachuk is an opportunist absolutely loyal to the authorities. Also he held a position of a vice-speaker of the Omsk City Council, and was a leader of the Oplot public organisation. The Oplot public organisation was established to help Omsk residents resolve issues that the authorities do not want to settle. The organisation’s website and its social media group are now down.
Short bio
Andrey Nikolayevich Tkachuk was born on 7 November 1970. In 1995, he graduated from Omsk State Technical University with a degree in Launch and Technical Complexes of Rockets and Spacecraft. He started his career in 1989 as an assembler at the Polet Production Association.
After graduating from the Omsk Technical University in 1995, he worked as a journalist at the joint-stock company Zodiac. From 1995 to 1999, he worked as a production editor and later as a chief editor of TV programmes on Eurasia Channel. From 1999 to 2002 – correspondent, editor-in-chief of news programmes at Omsk Regional TV and Radio Broadcasting Company (Channel 12). From 2002 to 2004 – Manager at CJSC Agro-Trust Corporation. From 2004 to 2005 – Head of Division of the Public Relations Department of Sibneft Joint Stock Company. From 2005 to 2009, he held the positions of Head of Division of the Information Policy Department (Head of the Press Centre) and Deputy Head of the Information Policy Department of the Omsk City Administration.
Since 2009 – Editor-in-Chief, Director of Domashnaya Gazeta (Omsk) LLC. From 4 June 2012 to June 2013 – Head of the Main Department for Press, TV and Radio Broadcasting and Means of Mass Communications of the Omsk Region Government. From July 2013 to September 2017 – Director of Slovo media holding, which includes Domashnaya Gazeta and RIA SuperOmsk.
In 2017, he was elected as a deputy of the City Council in single-mandate constituency. Subsequently, he was elected vice-speaker. In October 2019, he early resigned his deputy powers and moved to the city of Dolgoprudny, where he received the post of deputy head of the city administration. In November 2020, he resigned from this post.
Scandals
In 2013, the fact that subsidies of 16 million rubles were allocated from the regional budget to the SuperOmsk website and Domashnaya Gazeta received a certain resonance. The scandalous situation was fuelled by the fact that both publications were managed by Andrei Tkachuk, who was the head of the regional press affairs department before he was appointed head of the regional press affairs department. Subsequently, the allocation of money to private media became the subject of a prosecutor’s audit of the financial and economic activities of the State Department for Press Affairs of the Region. The audit proved the legality of the subsidies.
Being the head of the State Department of Press and Public Relations, Tkachuk deprived the representatives of two media outlets of accreditation to the governor’s press conference. He explained his decision by the fact that journalists of these resources defame the business reputation of the head of the region with their materials.