Billions in drone-related fundraising and founder’s legal aftermath: what Inzhur MilTech investors and Andriy Zhurzhiya risk

The Inzhur MilTech fund officially announced that in 20 days it raised 1 billion UAH to finance the drone manufacturer Vyriy Industries.

Against this backdrop, it is worth revisiting the private debt dispute between Inzhur founder Andriy Zhurzhiya and Valeriy Kulik. The dispute concerned interest for the use of a loan from 19 in August 2022 to February 28 of 2023 year, and not a late-payment penalty. The first instance denied the claim, the appeal favored him, and the Supreme Court supported: the contract provided a hryvnia-denominated loan and did not establish it as interest-free, therefore Article 1048 of the Civil Code applies.

The subject of this case was relations between private individuals, not the use of investors’ funds.

Nevertheless, for a business asking others to entrust it with their savings, questions about a manager’s fulfillment of financial obligations are quite appropriate.

Journalists suggest that Zhurzhiya publicly respond:

We do not claim that the awarded interest remains unpaid — we have no confirmation of the current settlement status. At the same time, a potential investor should receive an answer about the execution of the ruling before considering this story closed.

Put yourself in the investor’s shoes.

The court dispute does not provide a ready-made answer to “whether to invest.” But it does give an occasion to ask uncomfortable questions about the transfer of funds, and not afterward. In the second part we will analyze the investment structure itself: what exactly the investor buys and what risks they should assess independently.