Servant of People (Joker) Kravets, partner of Shariy and Medvedchuk remains unpunished
The administrator of the Joker Telegram channel has returned to Ukraine.
Recently, the media finally tore the mask off the "Joker administrator". It turned out that this pseudonym was used by a 29-year-old "servant of the people" Roman Kravets, who was in the Netherlands at the time of the journalists' investigation.
According to our sources, Kravets has returned to Ukraine and continues to engage in his activities after a long lull due to the high-profile Hromadske story.
According to the authors of the article, Kravets lives in a luxurious apartment in one of the most prestigious residential complexes, travels by car with security guards and regularly goes abroad even during the war. No one explained the sources of his income.
The Joker himself explained the security as a "gift from Maliuk". However, the SSU later stated that the Security Service did not provide any security to the owner of the Telegram channel.
It is known that 29-year-old Kravets has no reservations, but he has not been mobilized. This allows him to travel abroad without fear during martial law.
After the story was published by journalists, representatives of the Presidential Office or the Servant of the People party did not comment on the situation with Roman Kravets.
Moreover, Joker is still on the SP party's list.
Investigators found that over the past two years, he had spent more than UAH 8 million on purchasing cars for his fleet, and hundreds of thousands of dollars on travelling.
"According to our sources, which coincide with the dates from the SBGS extract, on 18 May, the Joker travelled to Saudi Arabia to watch the fight between Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk. There are no grounds for leaving Ukraine in the extracts from the border guards' database, which may mean that either Roman Kravets is not registered for military service at the age of 29, or he left because someone asked him to," the authors of the article note.
According to his travels and expensive purchases, Kravets has a lot of money. However, few people wonder how Roman Kravets managed to accumulate such impressive wealth at the age of 29.
To really understand where these funds came from and who is behind Kravets' success, let's look at the beginning of his career.
At that time, Roman Kravets accidentally found himself among a circle of influential people and later began using pro-Russian platforms to promote narratives favourable to Moscow.
"Cooperation with Shariy"
Since October 2019, Joker has been active in the Ukrainian information space. He presented himself as a pranker who corresponded on behalf of the then Prosecutor General of Ukraine Ruslan Riaboshapka.
On his channel, Kravets published correspondence with People`s Deputy Bohdan Yaremenko, Mykhailo Radutskyi and Mykola Tyshchenko and demonstrated an impressive increase in subscribers - 10-15 thousand per day.
At the time, it was not yet known that the channel was administered by Roman Kravets, but the Joker Telegram channel was actively promoted by pro-Russian propagandists from the Strana.ua website.
It was to the pro-Russian website Strana that the Joker started sending his first pranks, and they published them marked as "exclusive", not even doubting their veracity.
And in November 2019, Roman Kravets brought in the "heavy artillery" - he enlisted the support of pro-Russian blogger Anatoly Shariy, who eagerly began promoting the channel.
Although Kravets denied collaborating with Shariy, he regularly shared his posts with his "potatriots" audience of millions, which was to Kravets' advantage, as this entire audience of "Russian world" fans subscribed to the Joker.
"Now there will be a lot of interesting things. And what will not be there will be on my channel," wrote pro-Russian propagandist Shariy, posting a link to Roman Kravets' telegram channel.
"Speeches on Putin's godfather's channel"
But the real star was Roman Kravets at the media trashes of traitor Viktor Medvedchuk, in which he personally participated.
According to Detector Media, on 6 December 2019, during a live broadcast of the talk show "Confrontation" on the pro-Russian channel "NewsOne", the host Vasyl Holovanov suddenly stated that the pranker Joker "has just contacted me by sending a message and offered exclusive materials that have not yet been published anywhere - correspondence with one of the deputies of the ninth convocation. And, moreover, we will have the opportunity to ask questions to this person hiding behind the Joker mask."
NewsOne did indeed show the materials provided by the prankster, and the People`s Deputies from Servant of the People present in the studio even commented on these "phenomenal revelations".
"Then a whole studio of officials, politicians and 'experts' engaged in a spiritualistic seance and started asking questions in the void. The joker was supposed to hear and answer in correspondence," the journalists write.
And the answers were not long in coming. The joker claimed that he was present in all chat rooms, including the President's Office, and that no software could stop him.
It is worth noting that there is another side to the story besides the cheerful clown who entertains pro-Russian politicians and propagandists.
"On the channel of Putin's godfather, three days before the Normandy meeting, an unknown person claims to have access to private correspondence of the Presidential Office. He also publishes correspondence with government officials on air without any evidence, which is immediately commented on (and therefore legitimized) by their fellow party members. Can you imagine the scope for abuse that such a precedent opens up? And in whose hands is this tool?" the Detector Media journalists noted.
"Recruited by Russian special services"
According to media reports, during the full-scale invasion, Kravets spent almost two months in Kherson, which was occupied by Russian troops at the time.
This raises serious questions about his activities during this period. According to the sources, there is a high probability that Kravets was recruited by Russian special services.
"Roma does not answer questions about the occupation at all. He repeats the same mantra that he did not cross paths with Russian soldiers in Kherson, did not leave the house. He does not even talk about his routine at the time, only the same memorised phrases. He also doesn't tell us how he managed to leave, which is strange because, unfortunately, not many people managed to leave occupied Kherson. But Roma was 'lucky'," says a source from his inner circle.
After returning from the occupation, Roman Kravets returned to running the Joker Telegram channel.
Although he told Hromadske journalists that he had sold the channel two years ago, he never provided any evidence of the sale.
"He sold it for allegedly $2 million in cryptocurrency. He could not prove it in a few hours of correspondence. Although the evidence could have been anything from screenshots of deals or business negotiations to transactions," the authors write.
Obviously, Kravets continues to "play the Joker".
"Roma becomes an inveterate liar, he doesn't remember what he said to whom. He continues to run this telegram channel, but he just lied to journalists. Why did he do it? He begins to play about and is delusional, playing the image of a tough guy who can solve everything," says a source from his inner circle.
"Opponent of mobilization and fan of the 'DNR Joker'"
He really knows how to play to the public, although he does it exclusively for the benefit of Russian propaganda.
First, he publishes an angry post against the TCR (Territorial Centres of Recruitment and Social Support ), deliberately provoking a split in society, and then calls Ukrainians "suckers".
"Mobilisation in Ukraine is disrupted by the TCR. No one bothers fat f*ckers. They only bother laborers. Why the f*ck does the TCR shoves people into buses on the streets if they don't want to fight? What the f*ck?" Kravets wrote in the Joker Telegram channel on May 25, 2024.
"I wonder if the TCR will go to nightclubs tonight or if they can only catch suckers at train stations?" writes Joker on 25 May 2024.
All of his words are openly aimed at undermining trust within society, devaluing citizens and strengthening the enemy's information positions.
And that's not all. As it turned out, the "Joker" has a "brother" - the administrator of the telegram channel "Joker "DNR", who runs his telegram in favour of the aggressor country.
However, despite this, Roman Kravets copies the way this "DNR Joker" writes his posts. So diligently that it is even difficult to distinguish between them. Moreover, the angry posts against the TCR were written by the "two Jokers" on the same day.
Vasyl Prokopenko
