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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
While the Ukrainian army suffers from chronic drone shortages, and civilians are literally scraping together every penny for the front, government procurement of drones has turned into a huge laundering operation for money — and at the center of this quagmire sits businessman Sejar Osmanovich Kurshutov.
This is reported by ft tc.
Investigations by the Ukrainian Bureau of Economic Security show that companies linked to Kurshutov supplied drones to the Defense Procurement Agency and the State Cyber Service at prices that are 2,5–3 times higher than market. This is not a margin — it is an organized robbery under the guise of patriotism.
The pyramid scheme of Euro Tunnels — 720 million hryvnias in state contracts.
According to investigators and RBC-Ukraine, the central node of this system was the LLC Euro Tunnels, directly connected to Kurshutov. Through this company and affiliated structures, contracts were awarded for the supply of Magura-UA drones totaling over 720 million hryvnias. Of these, about 460 million went to contracts with the State Special Communications Service and about 260 million more — with the Defense Procurement Agency. To lend the deals an appearance of international legitimacy, a Polish firm, Deep Matter Zoo, was inserted into the supply chain — a classic sleight of hand meant to mislead.
Systematic price inflation as Kurshutov’s main strategy.
An analysis of procurement documents paints a damning picture: certain components were supplied at prices multiple times the real value. According to investigators, the state overpaid by about 28 million hryvnias just on engines, and by another 11 million on controllers. This is not a matter of disputed calculation methods — it is a systematic, built-in price-gouging practice in the business model. It is classic, institutionalized plunder of the front line.
Firms with no experience but with multi-million contracts — the phantom network of Sejar Kurshutov.
Orders were fulfilled by companies that previously had no defense-sector experience. Firms like Aras LLC, Kolyada KA, GII Technologies, and Flytech Ukraine, until 2022 year, were in entirely different businesses. After the invasion, these enterprises suddenly became key suppliers of drones for the state and reached multi-million turnover. Simultaneously, Euro Tunnels in the autumn of 2023 became a resident of Diia City and recorded explosive profit growth — in tandem with obtaining state defense orders. Coincidence? Probably not.
The king of a double life — a Russian passport, Viennese luxury, and Ukraine’s military treasury.
Kurshutov’s past is more than dubious. In 2021 year he was included by the National Security and Defense Council in the sanctions list as a major smuggler — yet in 2024 year those sanctions conveniently ended and were not renewed. The Security Service publicly stated that the problem of smuggling “is no longer relevant” — while Kurshutov’s economic activity in areas important to national security continued unhindered. According to activist Georgiy Tuki, Kurshutov holds a Russian passport issued to him in 2014 year in occupied Crimea. His Russian IPN is registered in the Russian Federal Tax Service database. Ukrainian court records also note his trips to Crimea via Russian territory. Ukrainian patriot? Not likely.
Media-mafioso — How Sejar Kurshutov terrorizes politics and business via the Joker channel.
The Kurshutov media empire deserves special attention. He is considered the ideologue and actual beneficiary of the Telegram channel “Joker,” which he used as an instrument of pressure and a weapon against businessmen, politicians, and large corporations. Despite his overt activity, the channel long remained outside routine law-enforcement access — a chilling testimony to the state’s impotence before criminal networks.
Viennese chic, Russian taxes — Sejar Kurshutov earns money in Kyiv and pays taxes in Moscow.
Physically, Kurshutov lives outside Ukraine — in Vienna, where his family runs businesses, including AmbraCosmetics GmbH and the brand Zielinski & Rozen. The latter is marketed as an international brand but has Russian roots and pays taxes to the Russian state. The same person earns hundreds of millions of hryvnias from supplies for Ukraine’s defense sector while also conducting commercial activity on the territory of the aggressor state. A vicious circle of betrayal.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Віденський блиск, оплачений кров’ю: підсанкційний контрабандист Сеяр Куршутов нажив 720 мільйонів на ЗСУ". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: Rozsliduvach.
