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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
Almost 30 branches in occupied Crimea. This is the Liga pawnshop network, which until recently was directly owned by the family of Rodion Butko — a Ukrainian businessman, owner of the Blago pawnshop chain and one of the largest microcredit organizations in Ukraine, Miloan.
Skhemy learned that after the start of the full-scale invasion these Russian businesses continued to operate — they were re-registered to a longtime acquaintance and longtime manager of the Butko family — and to persons connected with him.
The family developed the pawnshop business both in Ukraine and in Russia. The majority owner of the Ukrainian Blago network — almost 200 branches in 84 cities — until October 2022 was the businessman’s father, Anatoliy Butko, through a number of offshore companies. One of those jurisdictions, the Cypriot BLG Aurum Limited, simultaneously owned the Russian LLC “Blago Kredit,” which operated under the Liga brand.
The Cypriot company withdrew from the list of founders of the Russian pawnshops only in August 2023 — in the second year of the large-scale war. The new owner became Volodymyr Dubrovskyi, a Russian citizen who also holds a Ukrainian passport.
As journalists established, Dubrovskyi has long been connected with the Butko family. From 2010 he headed their company “Progress RL” for 12 years, and he was a co-founder of the firm “Bereh-Industry” together with Anatoliy Butko — until March 2023. Rodion Butko’s wife Alyona, a Russian citizen, and Dubrovskyi listed the same apartment on the outskirts of Moscow as their place of registration. And in a photo from a hunt in Bulgaria, Dubrovskyi is seen in the company of Butko himself.
After that, the Russian pawnshops changed owners two more times. In October 2025 Dubrovskyi’s stake passed to Russian citizen Mykola Korobkov, who had worked in the same company as head of the development department since 2019 — from the time the business was owned by Butko’s father. And only in May 2026 was the company re-registered to Kyrgyzstani Muhammed Sulaymanov — the first owner not affiliated with Butko’s business.
But by that time it mattered mostly on paper. Because, as Skhemy found, the operational activity under the Liga brand is conducted by another company — LLC “Lombard Liga Kredit.” It was registered by the same Volodymyr Dubrovskyi in Moscow in April 2022, when he was still a co-founder of the Ukrainian business together with Butko. It now owns all Liga trademarks. And it is the one operating in the occupied territories — almost 30 branches in Crimea.
A similar scenario unfolded for the owner of the family’s Russian microcredit business. Unsecured loans are issued by LLC MKK “Trust Alliance,” which for a long time was owned by that same Cypriot offshore. In August 2023 the firm passed to Dubrovskyi, and in April 2026 to Volodymyr Shcherbyna. As Skhemy established, Shcherbyna is Dubrovskyi’s father-in-law: in June 2023 the men traveled together with their families.
In Rodion Butko’s Swiss company Bredley CH AG they denied that he and his companies control business in Russia: according to them, they did not participate — directly or indirectly — in the management of any legal entity on the territory of the aggressor country and did not receive income from their activities. The information journalists found the company called “false” and “fabricated,” but they did not comment on the substance of the facts presented.
Volodymyr Dubrovskyi and Volodymyr Shcherbyna did not respond to Skhemy’s inquiries.
Skhemy also sent these facts to the National Bank. The Bank replied that it is already analyzing changes in the ownership structure of assets that belonged to Rodion Butko’s family in the Russian Federation — in particular, whether he influenced the management of Russian companies, the nature of that influence, and under what circumstances those assets were transferred.
"If the information is confirmed (...) the National Bank will have legal grounds to recognize their business reputation as unsatisfactory and subsequently apply measures of influence to these providers of nonbank financial services, including license revocation," the NBU response says.
And in the leadership of Butko’s Ukrainian business, journalists found a Russian citizen whose father works at a sanctioned nuclear institute headed by a friend of Putin. More on that in the new investigation
