Shadowy Contracts and Million-Hryvnia Losses: How the "Chornomorskyi Yacht Club" Is Declining Under Dmytro Natalukha

Shadowy Contracts and Million-Hryvnia Losses: How the "Chornomorskyi Yacht Club" Is Declining Under Dmytro Natalukha

The state enterprise (SE) "Chornomorskyi Yacht Club" has again found itself at the center of a major scandal. Law enforcement has launched another investigation into shadowy contracts on the enterprise’s territory — and this is far from the first time in its history. The country’s oldest yacht club, founded in 1875, has rapidly fallen into decline and disrepair in recent years while financial schemes continue around it.

This was reported by OBOZ.UA.

New director with no experience: who’s running the oldest yacht club

In April this year the head of the State Property Fund, Dmytro Natalukha, appointed a new manager of the club — Illia Povorozniuk. For the 31-year-old man this is his first job in the civil service. Povorozniuk explained that he holds the position of director of the SE "part-time," while continuing his active entrepreneurial activities. As a sole proprietor he is engaged in international automobile transportation from abroad.

"Chornomorskyi Yacht Club" is the center of sailing sport in Ukraine; more than 20 regattas in various yacht classes were held here annually. It is the only place in the country where an Olympic sailing team can be trained.

An interesting detail is that the newly appointed director of the country’s yacht club listed an email with the domain @caucasusauto.com when registering his sole proprietorship. That is the website of a large auto-logistics company that specializes in delivering cars in containers from the U.S. and Canada.

"This is my first job at a state enterprise. I submitted documents, a resume, and so on... I passed the competition. My candidacy was confirmed," the 31-year-old director of the SE explained. He did not specify how he learned about the vacancy.

There is a specific coincidence of circumstances: the SE "Chornomorskyi Yacht Club" traditionally accepts and stores containers on its grounds. For example, the Odesa outlet Dumska, citing its own sources, previously reported that about 30 containers were stored on the club’s territory, some of which are "illegal" — meaning they have no official contracts and do not pay the state enterprise a single hryvnia.

OBOZ.UA sent an official request to Dmytro Natalukha asking him to comment on how the new director was selected, whether anyone recommended appointing Povorozniuk, and whether the Fund’s leadership sees any conflict of interest in such "part-time" employment. At the time of publication, no response had been received from the agency.

Conversion to an LLC and chaos with contracts

The SE "Chornomorskyi Yacht Club" is now undergoing reorganization: from an SE to an LLC (this is required by law). Povorozniuk stated that there are no plans to privatize the enterprise.

Although such attempts have been made before — notably in 2019. At that time the State Property Fund changed its mind, because after privatization the new owner could easily develop the priceless coastline and completely change the historic yacht club’s profile. The object was removed from the privatization list and it was planned to lease it under strict conditions preserving its sporting profile.

However, no full lease agreement was ever concluded. According to the law, a lease would have had to be agreed with the State Property Fund, which sharply increases the risk of detecting violations, creates extra oversight, and triggers a complex bureaucratic procedure.

"All the contracts exist. Everyone who is on the territory has contracts for everything. When the inspection came, we showed everything," the enterprise director assures. But here lies the main nuance: these are "placement agreements," not full "lease agreements."

Even those private businesses that have operated on the yacht club’s territory for years and opened restaurants or establishments there legally do not "lease" anything — they are simply "placed" there.

"It’s all theirs, all theirs. We just kind of gave... placed, so to speak, their property on our territory," Povorozniuk tries to explain the specifics. For example, a catering establishment operates on the yacht club’s grounds.

The new director admits that he was appointed only in April and has not yet physically had time to put the paperwork in order, as he has faced a host of other problems. In particular, some tenants (whom the director legally does not recognize as tenants) refuse to pay the state enterprise at all.

The club’s financial problems have reached a critical point:

For the results of 2024, the SE recorded a loss of 1,3 million hryvnias.

For the results of 2025, the loss amounted to another 624 thousand hryvnias.

At the same time, a significant number of private individuals stored their yachts and property on the territory but officially paid nothing into the state treasury. A particular sore point is the fate of the youth sports facility: until 2005 a reserve Olympic school operated on the club’s territory. Now the former school building is in an emergency condition and needs major repairs. In the future a modern sailing center and Olympic training base were supposed to operate here, but there is a catastrophic lack of funds for such large-scale work.

Officially there are no tenants, but shadow schemes operate

For years the SE "Chornomorskyi Yacht Club" has, instead of concluding transparent lease agreements, been signing dubious placement or joint activity documents. This practice thrived under previous management as well.

"Officials of the SE 'Chornomorskyi Yacht Club,' instead of directing business entities to the State Property Fund of Ukraine to conclude the lease agreements required by law, illegally transfer state property on the basis of service or storage agreements, thereby causing significant damage to the state budget of Ukraine," — stated the materials of the new criminal case that law enforcement registered on 17 June 2026 (already during the new director’s tenure).

These facts are currently being actively investigated by investigators of Police Department No. 5 of Odesa District Directorate No. 1 of the Main Directorate of the National Police in Odesa region. Most cynically, an almost identical criminal case regarding similar abuses, opened back in 2018, still has not been brought to trial.

The previous investigation concerned scandalous relations with a specific commercial entity — LLC "Transbunker Sailing Tiam" (owner — Yevhenii Svekolnikov from Cyprus). They concluded an onerous joint activity agreement under which 90% of the profit was to go to the private company, and only a paltry 10% to the state enterprise.

"In particular, it was established that the joint activity agreement dated 06.02.2006, No. 1/2006 was concluded without the written consent of the asset management body. Also, additional agreements were concluded without the written consent of the asset management body… At the same time, these additional agreements significantly worsen the condition of the State Enterprise as a participant in the joint activity," the investigation materials emphasize.

Who should bear responsibility for the catastrophe at the enterprise

The SE "Chornomorskyi Yacht Club" is just one of thousands of Ukrainian enterprises the state manages extremely inefficiently. About 2,2 thousand legal entities (including SEs) are directly under the State Property Fund’s authority. The lion’s share of these companies owns huge state assets: valuable land, premises, equipment, and entire production complexes. In practice, these resources are often transferred into shadow management by private business, bypassing all legal restrictions and in ways most profitable to the management.

As a result, shadow leasing of land and property has become extremely widespread in Ukraine. Instead of open and full lease agreements, convoluted joint activity agreements are signed or fictitious services are ordered. The main problem is that the state always loses out. Such deals almost always have a shadow component, and real million-hryvnia revenues end up in the pockets of interested officials and businessmen.

In addition to the direct management of the state enterprise itself, the State Property Fund of Ukraine’s leadership, including Dmytro Natalukha, must bear direct and key responsibility for this chaos. After all, the Fund is directly responsible for personnel policy, appointing loyal and often random people without state experience, and for the complete absence of effective control over the use of national assets, allowing historical objects to be destroyed for private enrichment.