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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
One of the largest microcredit organizations in Ukraine is owned by a Swiss company whose board of directors includes a Russian citizen. Her father holds a leadership position at a Russian institute of nuclear physics — a division of the sanctioned Kurchatov Institute, headed by Vladimir Putin’s friend Mikhail Kovalchuk.
This was revealed by Skhemy.
It concerns Miloan — a company that has operated on the Ukrainian market for over 10 years and ranks among the top ten microcredit organizations by revenue: in 2025 its revenue amounted to 1,6 billion hryvnias, net profit — 65 million.
The sole owner of Miloan is Ukrainian citizen Rodion Butko, who is currently registered and resides in Italy. He owns the company through another Ukrainian firm and the Swiss Bredley CH AG, whose board of directors he chairs. Until recently that position was held by Kateryna Tattersall — she is now a member of the board. And, as the registration file of LLC Miloan shows, it is she who signs registration actions of the Ukrainian company with her personal signature.
In all company documents Tattersall is listed as a Swiss citizen. But, as Skhemy found, she also holds another citizenship — Russian. Journalists located this information in leaks from Russian databases and verified it through official Russian resources: on the Gosuslugi portal her passport is shown as valid, and the Federal Tax Service records that passport linked to a Russian tax identification number.
Moreover, Tattersall traveled to Russia even after the start of the full-scale invasion: in August of 2022 she flew from Istanbul Airport to Saint Petersburg — using the Russian international passport issued in January 2021.
Her father, Ihor Baranov, lives in Saint Petersburg. He works as assistant to the director of the Petersburg Institute of Nuclear Physics — a division of the Kurchatov Institute. The daughter’s connection to her father is also traceable through Tattersall’s use of his phone number to register on Russian websites.
The Kurchatov Institute is aiding Russia in the war against Ukraine, in particular by developing navigation systems for Kh-101 cruise missiles and the Iskander, and is under sanctions by the U.S. and Ukraine. The institution is led by Mikhail Kovalchuk, whom media outlets, along with his brother Yuri, call among Vladimir Putin’s closest friends. Recently Kovalchuk proposed testing nuclear weapons to “scare the West.”
Holding Russian citizenship in itself is an indicator of questionable business reputation, as provided by the National Bank’s regulations. Moreover, such an assessment has a “domino effect”: if the regulator finds Tattersall’s reputation unsatisfactory, this could affect Bredley CH AG and LLC Miloan as well. For a microcredit company, that can be grounds for losing its license. In response to Skhemy’s inquiry, the National Bank reported that it is already investigating these facts.
In the Swiss company of Rodion Butko they denied that he or his companies control business in Russia, but refused to comment on the facts cited by journalists, and left unanswered questions about Kateryna Tattersall’s Russian citizenship and ties to Russia.
In addition to microfinance, the Butko family built a large pawnshop network — not only in Ukraine but also in Russia. What happened to that business after the invasion began is detailed in the new investigation.
