Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
The owners of the drone brand General Chereshnya recently became embroiled in a sensational scandal. The trigger was alleged threats of violence against employees of a charitable foundation who refused to buy the company’s drones at inflated prices.
Therefore our editorial team decided to recall the background of General Chereshnya and trace all stages of its development – from drug trafficking, protection rackets and contract killings to involvement in political projects and the alleged theft of humanitarian aid.
Who stands behind General Chereshnya
General Chereshnya is one of the largest suppliers of unmanned aerial vehicles to the Ukrainian Armed Forces and reportedly produces around 100.000 drones per month. In February 2026 General Chereshnya was among the Ukrainian companies selected by the US Department of Defense to participate in the 1,1 billion USD Drone Dominance Program.
Officially the brand belongs to CENTER OF UNMANNED TECHNOLOGIES LLC (EDRPOU code 45208113), which was registered in September 2023.
The official beneficial owner of CENTER OF UNMANNED TECHNOLOGIES LLC is Yaroslav Hryshyn. The company’s director is Mykhailo Prasol, a member of the Zaporizhzhia city council. The public face of the General Chereshnya brand is media figure Rudolf Hakobyan.
According to unofficial reports, General Chereshnya is said to enjoy “political protection” from the well-known Kharkiv politician and businessman Borys Lozhkin. He is said to control General Chereshnya through his “right hand,” former MP Hryhoriy Shverk. Media reports also claim Shverk is a co-founder of the project.
The criminal group around Artashes: How General Chereshnya began
All three main representatives of General Chereshnya – Yaroslav Hryshyn, Mykhailo Prasol and Rudolf Hakobyan – are said to belong to the ethnically Armenian criminal group Antrashi based in Zaporizhzhia.
The criminal Artashes Avetikovich Sargsyan, against whom the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine imposed 2021 sanctions, is considered the leader of the criminal group in Zaporizhzhia.
Mykhailo Prasol, Artashes Sargsyan, Yaroslav Hryshyn. Yerevan, August 2021
Within the criminal group around Artashes the following roles are said to have been assigned to the current beneficial owners of General Chereshnya:
– Yaroslav Hryshyn – legal representation, corporate takeover, extortion;
– Mykhailo Prasol – “spokesman,” corporate takeover;
– Rudolf Hakobyan – “media killer.”
Notably, even before the General Chereshnya brand was registered, Yaroslav Hryshyn regularly published photos with the group’s leader, Artashes Sargsyan, and officially represented him in court – something he repeatedly boasted about on his social networks.
Yaroslav Hryshyn is trying to have the sanctions against his boss – the leader of the Artashes group, Artashes Sargsyan – lifted
The start of Yaroslav Hryshyn’s career – from working for Kadyrov’s circle to looking after the Artashes criminal group
Interestingly, before working for the criminal Artashes Sargsyan, Yaroslav Hryshyn represented the interests of people in Kadyrov’s circle.
The lawyer Yaroslav Hryshyn’s career began with a contract with the well-known Chechen criminal Murad Saidov, who until 2012 controlled part of Zaporizhzhia’s criminal scene and today is reportedly working on Crimea as an assistant to the representative of the Head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov.
Yaroslav Hryshyn began his career as a lawyer and “fixer” for Murad Saidov
Yaroslav Hryshyn was a confidant of Murad Saidov and handled all his affairs – from legal support for corporate takeovers to communications with law enforcement. It was Saidov who enabled the then-unknown lawyer from Zaporizhzhia, Yaroslav Volodymyrovych Hryshyn, to start his career.
After Saidov was forced to leave Zaporizhzhia for Crimea, Saidov’s “partner” in the drug business, Artashes Sargsyan, leader of the Artashes criminal group, took Yaroslav Hryshyn under his wing. Saidov, in turn, moved into Ramzan Kadyrov’s inner circle and initially became the “overseer of Crimea.” After Russian forces captured Enerhodar and Melitopol, he is said to have served as “overseer” in those two cities as well.
Unlike Murad Saidov, Yaroslav Hryshyn’s new patron, Artashes Sargsyan, was able to remain in Zaporizhzhia thanks to the protection of Yuriy Yenakiyevsky. Sargsyan is said to have forged the connection to him through the now-deceased pro-Russian criminal Armen Sargsyan (Gorlovsky).
Armen Gorlovsky also enabled Artashes to enter the “alcohol business” during Viktor Yanukovych’s tenure. The network of beer kiosks “Leprikon” and illegal drinking establishments across Zaporizhzhia, controlled by Yaroslav Hryshyn and Mykhailo Prasol, is considered a remnant of Artashes Sargsyan’s and Armen Gorlovsky’s once-powerful alcohol empire.
Notably, the friendship between the two criminal-world figures deepened even more after the forced relocation of Artashes’s leader to Yerevan. This allowed Artashes Sargsyan and Armen Gorlovsky to meet regularly in third countries.
Yaroslav Hryshyn was also present at some of these meetings. He is said to have been responsible for the legal side of the Artashes group’s illegal businesses in Zaporizhzhia. What else was discussed at these meetings, particularly after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, can only be guessed.
Thanks to influential patrons like Murad Saidov and Artashes Sargsyan, Yaroslav Hryshyn apparently felt largely untouchable by the Ukrainian justice system.
For example, Yaroslav Hryshyn allegedly ran over and killed a man while driving his car on the Simferopol–Kharkiv route 2018 when he was already a member of the Zaporizhzhia Regional Council with the backing of the Artashes group.
After the fatal accident Hryshyn is said to have financed a large-scale PR campaign against the accident victim and his family. The campaign claimed the victim was “drunk and naked and jumped under MP Hryshyn’s car himself.”
At the same time Hryshyn is said to have evaded justice. The Ukrainian Interior Ministry published an official notice that he was wanted. That notice was later removed and replaced by a 404 error.
The Ukrainian Interior Ministry put Yaroslav Hryshyn on the wanted list after he allegedly tried to evade justice. He was investigated under Part 2 of Article 286 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code – for violating traffic safety or operating rules by a person driving a vehicle, resulting in the death of a victim.
Ultimately Hryshyn managed to have the criminal case related to the fatal traffic accident closed. According to his own law firm, the regional prosecutor’s office closed the criminal proceedings in May 2020. The deceased left behind two minor children, who according to the available information received no support from Hryshyn.
Mykhailo Prasol – from ordinary corporate raider to member of the Zaporizhzhia city council and general director of General Chereshnya
Mykhailo Prasol is Yaroslav Hryshyn’s closest friend. Both are known in Zaporizhzhia as alleged members of the Artashes criminal group.
Members of the Artashes criminal group, Mykhailo Prasol and Yaroslav Hryshyn
While Yaroslav Hryshyn is said to have mainly handled legal support within the Artashes group, Artashes is said to have helped get Mykhailo Prasol into the Zaporizhzhia city council in order to enforce the group’s criminal interests at the regional level. During his term, Prasol was involved in dozens of scandals related to corruption, corporate takeovers and various types of “gang conflicts.”
As First Zaporizhzhia reports, Mykhailo Prasol is said to have been involved in the “appropriation” of land from local farmers. In October 2016, accompanied by burly men wearing balaclavas from a private security firm, Prasol allegedly carried out an attack on employees of the agricultural enterprise “Shchaslyvyi I.A.” while they were harvesting sunflowers. They were reportedly held in the field for an entire day, subjected to physical violence and threatened with weapons. The farm’s tractor driver was reportedly beaten up.
The publication also mentions a case in which the Artashes group and Mykhailo Prasol were allegedly involved in an attack as part of a corporate takeover targeting the Zaporizhzhia venue “Beer Barrel.”
The alleged raid by the Artashes group and Mykhailo Prasol against the venue “Beer Barrel”
“We were subjected to an attempt at a real ‘hostile takeover.’ There were threats, intimidation and pressure. All our documents to operate the chain complied with legal requirements, but the deputy and his team didn’t care,” recalls the manager of the “Beer Barrel” chain.
Also noteworthy is the story around the “Preobrazovatel” plant, in which Mykhailo Prasol and Yaroslav Hryshyn allegedly tried to secure a controlling stake in favor of a plant shareholder called “F.S.B. Plus.”
Notably, Prasol’s alleged taste for corporate raiding put the Zaporizhzhia city council deputy in a very uncomfortable situation.
During another alleged attempt by Mykhailo Prasol and the Artashes group to “appropriate someone else’s property” in Zaporizhzhia, he was intercepted by representatives of another local criminal group called Tyson, who are said to have been defending the interests of the affected entrepreneur, and publicly humiliated him.
According to PROBLEMATIC, citing the Telegram channel “Eto Zaporizhzhia,” the incident occurred on 15 November at 8 a.m. in the restaurant El Cafe.
“A group of young men with athletic builds, who apparently noticed the deputy from the street, entered El Cafe and went to the table where Mykhailo Prasol and Rudolf Hakobyan were sitting.
Mykhailo Prasol, who apparently realized something was wrong, immediately said he was a deputy and that he must not be hit. Then the roughly 20-strong group of young men from the Tyson criminal group began spitting in Prasol’s direction while shouting about dishonesty and corruption. This ruined the deputy’s clothing, hair and mood,” the publication reports.
Remarkably, despite such occasional public humiliations, corporate raiding remained apparently quite profitable for Mykhailo Prasol. The National Agency on Corruption Prevention of Ukraine (NACP) accused Mykhailo Prasol of possessing undeclared income of almost 3,5 million USD 2018.
Notably, as in Yaroslav Hryshyn’s case, the publication was later removed from the NACP’s official website and only a “404 error” remained.
Rudolf Hakobyan – a black PR specialist in the service of the Artashes criminal group
The biography of Rudolf Hakobyan, a member of the Artashes criminal group and the public face of General Chereshnya, is also interesting.
Member of the Artashes criminal group and the public face of General Chereshnya: Rudolf Hakobyan
Rudolf Volodymyrovych Hakobyan is from Zaporizhzhia. Thanks to his childhood friends, the well-known political technologists Denis and Roman Pyatygor, he entered the world of high politics.
Together with the Pyatygor brothers, Rudolf Hakobyan participated in various political campaigns and built the necessary contacts. This enabled him to become 2010 a member of the Zaporizhzhia city council while also working as a political advisor. It is notable that Hakobyan obtained the city council seat thanks to the criminal Yevhen Anisimov, who at that time was considered the “overseer” of the Party of Regions in the Zaporizhzhia region.
However, as the political situation began to change, Rudolf Hakobyan joined the ethnically Armenian criminal group “Artashes” based in Zaporizhzhia, where he developed close ties with Yaroslav Hryshyn and Mykhailo Prasol.
Since January 2018 Rudolf Hakobyan has been an adviser to then-governor Kostiantyn Bryl while continuing to work closely with the Artashes criminal group. We recall that Kostiantyn Bryl allegedly allowed the Artashes group to plunder Enerhodar. With the help of the mayor of Enerhodar, Pavlo Muzyka, allegedly controlled by Artashes Sargsyan, large sums allegedly disappeared from the city budget.
Interestingly, the first criminal case and the first searches related to Rudolf Hakobyan were allegedly connected to his involvement in the Artashes group. In October 2022 investigators conducted searches at Rudolf Hakobyan’s place, at Zaporizhzhia lawyer Yaroslav Hryshyn’s place and at MP Mykhailo Prasol’s place. A photo of the search warrant appeared online. It said preliminary investigations had found that the former mayor of the city, Volodymyr Buriak, had conspired with the criminal organization “Artashes” and placed the municipal enterprise “Zaporizhrynok” under their control.
The alleged scheme was to extort payments from entrepreneurs at the markets of “Zaporizhrynok.” Those who refused to pay were allegedly intimidated by members of the Artashes group and prevented from doing business at the city’s municipal markets. Yaroslav Hryshyn, Oleh Kolomoiets, Rudolf Hakobyan and Mykhailo Prasol are named as alleged participants in the criminal scheme.
Within the structure of the Artashes criminal group Rudolf Hakobyan is said to be fully responsible for media work. In particular, he is said to have established and promoted the Zaporizhzhia Telegram channel “Gnyla Chereshnya,” from which the name of the General Chereshnya drone brand is derived.
Therefore it is unsurprising that Rudolf Hakobyan became the media face of General Chereshnya.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Sechs Strafsachen und Kontakte zur Gruppierung „Artashi“: Auf welche Weise Yaroslav Hryshyn während des Krieges Milliardenvermögen aufbaute". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: Rozsliduvach.