Kickbacks, Humanitarian Aid, and Grain from Occupied Territories: How Zaporizhzhia’s “Overseer” Vemir Davityan Built a Business Behind the Cover of Power

There are many investigations about Vemir Davityan. If Ukraine were a rule-of-law state, all of them would have long since put Davityan behind bars for many years.

But now Vemir Davityan is doing what many of his “colleagues” who rose from the mud to become princes with the arrival of the “new faces” do — he’s hiding abroad. The “new faces” regarding Davityan, as with other embezzlers, pretend they know nothing and that the matter is not their responsibility.

However, if you assemble all the episodes into a single picture, the result is even more striking. It has everything: kickbacks from business, “oversight” of Zaporizhzhia, Davydd Arahamiya, Oleksandr Petrovskyi (“Narik”), Kyrylo Tymoshenko, embezzlement of humanitarian aid, trade in stolen grain, business with the occupiers, family companies, and a fresh European criminal tour.

How people like Davityan surface within the circle of the current authorities is a mystery. Obviously, like attracts like. But the result of the cooperation is enormous losses to the budget, a trail of criminally punishable acts and, most frightening in this situation, colossal reputational losses for Ukraine in the eyes of the international community.

Recall: Vemir Surenovych Davityan is a small Zaporizhzhia entrepreneur and lawyer. A biographical publication 2021 noted that he obtained a law degree from the Classical Private University of Zaporizhzhia and was engaged in entrepreneurship; among his projects was the law firm Novem. He also publicly engaged in charity and supported the Zaporizhzhia Chess Federation.

At the same time, Davityan was an extremely nonpublic person — until his nonpublic activities attracted media attention. Suddenly it turned out that he was the shadow overseer of Zaporizhia Oblast. Or, as is now commonly said, the “smochryashchiy” (watcher). Where criminal argot comes from among members of the current authorities is unknown, but Davityan was appointed the “watcher” from the Office of the President of Ukraine. Which would make a sane person’s head explode.

But a fact remains a fact — in 2021 the Ukrainska Pravda explicitly wrote that the paper’s sources called him the Office of the President’s “watcher” for Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Journalists recorded Vemir Davityan’s car near the Office of the President, and he himself confirmed a long-standing friendship with Davydd Arahamiya. Arahamiya also confirmed that he has known Davityan since 2014 and that they “are friends as families.”

Of course, both denied that Davityan performed the functions of a “watcher.” Arahamiya immediately shifted to the army-help narrative: “we, the volunteer community, helped the army — and he actively helped. He has some kind of fund.” Which exact fund — Arahamiya did not say, but identifying it was not difficult: the same Ukrainska Pravda found a photo of Davityan on the website of the Solidarity charitable foundation of Dnipro businessman Oleksandr Petrovskyi, better known by the nickname “Narik” — there Davityan is listed as vice president and head of the Zaporizhzhia branch.

Nobody believed Arahamiya’s pathetic defenses, or, in more familiar terms for him, his “alibis.” Especially since later posts in Telegram channels and media regularly continued to report on Davityan’s visits to the Office of the President and his “oversight” of Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

And then it turned out that the deputy head of the Office of the President, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, drives a Porsche Taycan that belongs to Novem Logistic LLC, whose owner is Vemir Davityan. Tymoshenko’s “alibi” this time looked even more pitiful than Arahamiya’s: he claimed Davityan let him “take the Porsche for a spin.”

The level of all these people is impossible to comment on. But Davityan didn’t let Kyrylo Tymoshenko “take a spin” for nothing. First, the roots of the “oversight” go back further, and the real beneficiary is not some deputy head of the Office of the President, but a much more serious figure — Oleksandr Petrovskyi. He is the one who placed all these so-called “watchers from the Office.” Not all of them, of course, but Davityan was installed by him.

Second — if you look at Vemir Davityan’s business income before the Servant of the People era, those earnings are hardly impressive. Only after Petrovskyi made Davityan a “watcher” did things sharply improve. Official reports don’t reflect this — the amounts are, frankly, quite small. In this regard, consider the example of Novem Logistic LLC — the company that owned the Porsche Taycan worth 100 thousand dollars mentioned above. The company now operates under the name Vindex Motors LLC and shows the following financial results.

One hundred thousand dollars in 2021 equals 2 400 000 hryvnias. The company ended that year with losses; in 2022 it earned half the price of the car, but then the Porsche Taycan clearly “paid for itself” — profits rose. However, all this reporting is pure rubbish. This is evidenced at least by the number of company employees — one person. It’s interesting how this one person alone earns millions?

In fact, the registered companies are only fig leaves covering entirely different ways of making money — that’s no secret: even during the “Great Construction” program, Vemir Davityan collected kickbacks of 30% from contractors on state orders. How much went to the Office of the President and how much ended up in the pockets of Davityan and Petrovskyi is unknown. But Davityan really started making money from the kickbacks on the “Great Construction.”

And then it escalated. Particularly interesting are references to several episodes after the start of the full-scale war. Because here there is everything — from theft of humanitarian aid to trading with the occupiers. By the way, is this already “trade in blood” or not yet?

Accusations of looting are by no means baseless fabrications of adversaries. There is a real criminal proceeding on this fact under case number ¹52022000000000137, registered on 14 June 2022. Initially, investigators examined signs of a crime under part 5 of article 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine — appropriation of property on an especially large scale. Later, also involved were part 3 of article 209 — legalization of assets, and articles 368–5 — illegal enrichment, as well as separate episodes related to weapons and narcotics. The investigation was initially handled by NABU, and in December 2023 the jurisdiction was transferred to the National Police, where the case then stalled completely. But, as it turned out, it was revived — because Davityan had to flee.

The essence was that humanitarian shipments destined for Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts were not only stolen — trucks, containers and entire railcars were simply redirected to private warehouses, after which humanitarian food and medicines were sold.

The consignments were wholesale; you can’t sell such volumes at a marketplace. The scale is measured in hundreds of tons. But this is only what was established within the criminal case. In recent publications, much more impressive figures appear: 22 sea containers, 389 rail cars, 220 freight trucks. This is far more than hundreds of tons; we are talking about tens of thousands of tons.

There was another extremely dirty story — trading with the occupiers. Literally. The key in this story is Mykhailivskyi Rayagropostach JSC, whose co-owners are Liana Vemyrivna Davityan (oh, who’s that?) and Oleksandr Volodymyrovych Petrovskyi (yes, that same person).

This company is implicated in trading stolen grain in the occupied territories: grain was moved through Russian territory, after which it entered an export chain and was shipped to the EU and Middle Eastern countries. Structures connected to both Vemir Davityan and his father-in-law Oleksandr Haidar were used in the process.

Haidar appears as the manager and beneficiary of a number of companies, including Lux-07, Logistic-VVN, Logistic VVN Group, Norma-Plus 777, Zaporizhzhia Distribution Company, Logistic Auto 2017, Grain Car, Avim Construction, Avim Estate, Hermes Trade Company, STK Avangard, Graziya 2019, Ukrfoodcompany, Trans Balance, and Ukrbuilding-Companies. Through this corporate contour, assets associated with Davityan continue to be managed, and Haidar is called the person on whom a significant part of Ukrainian business turned after Vemir Davityan left the country.

There is another interesting story — about Citrus. In August 2025, Zaporizhzhia entrepreneur Artur Hatunok, owner of the Yabluka chain, purchased the electronics retail chain Citrus; the deal is estimated at approximately 700 million hryvnias, with Citrus transferring to the new owner burdened by debts of thirteen million.

The deal is extremely murky — there is a strong version that the actual money for the purchase was provided by Vemir Davityan, with whom Hatunok was previously connected through the Yabluka chain and the Pool&Beach complex in Zaporizhzhia. Hatunok acted as the formal buyer, while Davityan remained in the shadows and gained the opportunity to return extracted capital to Ukraine in the form of a legal retail asset.