Treason and Funding the Aggressor: What Deputy Iryna Kostiushko from Zhytomyr Region Should Be Held Accountable For

The activity of Zhytomyr regional council deputy Iryna Kostyushko and the group of companies she controls, Zorya Agro Group, which operates in this region, can be evaluated as elements of state treason, aiding the country- aggressor, and funding terrorism through cooperation with Russian investors. This is how the publication Korotko.Pro describes it in its material. It refers to funds invested in Kostyushko's agricultural business by one of the defendants in the “Kremlin list,” Daniil Kachaturov, who is likely to move his investments out of Ukraine soon, which would be considered direct funding of military aggression.

The outlet notes that the media has been publishing investigations into Kostyushko's activities for more than a year. In this time it became known that she holds a Russian passport, which probably led to her removal from the Solidarity faction of the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko, and later from the Proposals faction.

It is also known that funds in Zorya were invested by Daniil Kachaturov from the Russian company Rosgosstrakh. Russian managers, for example Zurab Gelashvili, joined the leadership of the agribusiness, who, from Moscow, managed the insurance business of the Ukrainian company Providna, which they planned to take out of the insurance market, while the money would be redirected to the agricultural sector. “Kostyushko, with Russian roots and citizenship, managed to ‘sell’ her companies from the Zorya Agro Group to Kachaturov and his management.”

As a result, in 2022-2023 years, already after the start of the full-scale invasion, through the Cypriot intermediary Amagere Holdings, Kostyushko was infused with about $7 million into a number of Ukrainian businesses. In this way, Russians successfully parked their capital here. The connection to Russian firms of Kostyushko was confirmed in recent declarations,” the article says.

In the records of the Cypriot firm, which Ukrainian investigators published, it was stated explicitly that through Amagere there are also investments in other Cypriot “fronts” engaged in construction projects for Rosgosstrakh—the company of RGS Nedvizhimost—in Sochi, Nizhny Novgorod, Saint Petersburg, and Moscow. Even now, when Kostyushko’s and her companies’ Russian ties are exposed in detail, Amagere’s director remains Demetra Stavrinou. She is a Cypriot lawyer who is also a director in a number of businesses connected with the sanctioned Alpha Bank and its owners, which Ukraine has sanctioned. Daniil Kachaturov himself is a long-standing client of Alpha Bank.

“Now, according to the media, alarmed by numerous criminal cases and asset arrests in several Zorya companies, Kachaturov is preparing to withdraw investments from the Zhytomyr agribusiness, which would threaten the entire business formally managed by Kostyushko,” the outlet adds.

The article notes that “numerous criminal cases, evidenced by registers mentioning the names of companies within Zorya Agro Group and related businesses, indicate that in her entrepreneurial strategy Iryna Kostyushko is likely aiming for ‘best practices’ from the north, where fraud, tax evasion, and various asset-laundering schemes are more common than lawful business conduct.”

“In the last few years Kostyushko’s business became the subject of several cases of illegal seizure of community lands through fraudulent schemes, involvement in schemes to supply “black” grain abroad (without paying customs duties and taxes, with fictitious documents); involvement in schemes of fictitious leasing of land plots to form false documents. About the “rebirth of kolkhozes” – rehabilitating old organizational forms of collective enterprises to seize lands of local communities, including the Korosten community; illegal logging on plots illegally obtained from previous schemes. One criminal case mentions a possible arrest of Zorya Group companies’ assets for more than 250 million hryvnias. And in other cases – charges for prison terms from 3 to 12 years,” the outlet adds.

“Obviously, further delay in bringing to justice and stopping activities that fund the aggressor state should serve as a signal to other entrepreneurs who, despite Russia’s full-scale invasion, continue to trade with or otherwise interact with the aggressor. After all, this concerns primarily protecting and strengthening the country’s defense capabilities, through stopping funding of the enemy’s economy and exposing traitors to the country,” the outlet concludes.