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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
Yermak’s inner circle entered the construction mafia business and Putin’s godson’s sphere
Journalists doubt that Artem Koliubaiev in the suspicious commercial structures was representing only himself.
Business partner of the head of the Office of the President Andriy Yermak, Artem Koliubaiev, from 2019 began actively joining as co-founder companies connected to the MP elected from OPZZh, Vadym Stolar, and the ex-MP suspected of treason Viktor Medvedchuk, the investigation says.
Koliubaiev is a Ukrainian film producer who is linked to Yermak through joint films.
Journalists note that after Koliubaiev’s appointment to the Office of the President he began actively entering Stolar–Medvedchuk business.
In spring 2021 he headed the Council for State Support of Cinematography, which distributes funds allocated for Ukrainian cinema.
At the same time, in December of 2019, Koliubaiev became co-owner of the asset management company Asset Financial Group, which provided million-level financial aid to firms involved in building residential complexes for the ENSO development company in Kyiv.
The company was previously attributed by media to the MP elected from the Opposition Platform—For Life, Vadym Stolar.
Journalists found traces of Stolar in almost all structures that supported ENSO’s activities.
In March 2020 Koliubaiev joined the Quantor Project fund, which conducted financial operations with another fund, Stream Invest. The beneficiary of the latter at that time was Serhiy Turchynov—a business partner of Stolar.
In October 2020 Koliubaiev became owner of the Appeliot fund, which, according to media, also participated in ENSO affairs by selling apartments in one of the residential complexes.
A draft copy of a purchase-sale agreement for one of the apartments that fell into journalists’ hands states that Alexander Deviatko acted on behalf of the fund; he was also on the supervisory board of the Stream Investment fund mentioned above.
The latter belongs to Vadym Stolar’s wife, Inna Maistruk, and actively invested money in the construction of all three ENSO residential complexes.
At the time Koliubaiev was actively entering companies connected to ENSO developments, the circle surrounding the treason-suspected Viktor Medvedchuk also joined the process.
At the beginning of 2020 another fund investing in construction, Evo Invest, moved from Stolar’s associates to Estonian businessman Oleksiy Chulets. Companies of Chulets, according to Skhemy, in 2018–2020 delivered bitumen from the Russian Novoshakhtinsk plant, which was then controlled by Medvedchuk, to Ukraine. Chulets’s subsidiaries in Russia were closely intertwined with companies of Belarusian oligarch Mykola Horobets, who is close to Medvedchuk.
From the fall of 2020 the Aster fund entered as co-owner into the firms that acted as clients for all three ENSO residential complexes; Aster was in turn owned by the Cypriot offshore Limedell Limited (also connected to Medvedchuk).
Its audit report states that in May of 2020 its subsidiary NewCoal Trading AG began operating in Moscow and that in the same year the American fuel giant ExxonMobil bought Russian oil from that same Novoshakhtinsk plant for the U.S. market through NewCoal Trading AG.
Accordingly, Yermak’s partner entered a business that was controlled by Stolar’s and Medvedchuk’s circles.
According to Bihus.Info, Koliubaiev’s official earnings as of mid-2019 could not have allowed him to independently invest significant funds in such construction companies. Media doubt that Koliubaiev represented only himself in the above structures.
Koliubaiev’s name was first linked to companies close to ENSO in spring 2018, when he became a member of the supervisory board of the Skiling fund. That board was then chaired by Oleksandr Kovtun. A person with the same name later served as director of the aforementioned Stream Investment fund belonging to Stolar’s wife. In addition, analysis of social networks suggests that Koliubaiev had previously been acquainted with the family of ENSO’s CEO Ramil Mehtiev.
However, this acquaintance and formal representation in one of the funds cannot explain the fact that the film producer began actively 'entering' other legal entities already as owner or co-owner precisely at the time Stolar became an MP and Yermak headed the Office of the President.
Stolar left Ukraine on the eve of the full-scale invasion and, according to Ukrainska Pravda, was staying on the French Riviera. In January of 2023 Stolar unexpectedly returned to Kyiv and, according to Ukrainska Pravda, received guarantees that his parliamentary status would be preserved until the end of the term. In June media reported that Stolar had allegedly decided to exit his construction business.
However, there is no activity at the mentioned ENSO sites, and the company recently announced another pause in construction.
Against this background, Koliubaiev exited some linked companies, but instead created new ones on his own.
At the end of November Koliubaiev founded the District fund, which has not yet appeared publicly anywhere. The director of District is listed as a person who previously featured in the construction processes of Stolar’s circle, hinting that the fund’s activities will still be connected to construction.
For four days journalists tried to obtain comments, but Koliubaiev, after reading the messages, ignored them. ENSO’s phones are switched off entirely, and the company’s official co-owner Andriy Rudenko was promised the questions, but by the time the story was published no one had contacted the journalists.
grom-ua
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Оточення Єрмака увійшло в бізнес будівельної мафії та кума Путіна". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: ANTIKOR.
