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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
While many figures from Viktor Yanukovych’s era live abroad or are elected to the Russian State Duma, people from Petro Poroshenko’s inner circle remain in Ukraine and, likely, operate in the shadows.
Why the well-known and one of the most successful Ukrainian restaurateurs Mykhailo Beilin had many “blank spots” in his past, and how it happened that the current president Volodymyr Zelensky might have helped cover them up. From a restaurant to a hotel in Bukovel. This is reported by Komentari.
If you look at the biography of Kyiv businessman and restaurateur Mykhailo Beilin, you’ll find it is very uneven — some information about him appears only in 2008, when he turned 31. His surname, according to internet sources, first surfaced in connection with his role as vice president of the All-Ukrainian Advertising Association and head of the advertising company Promotion Technologies.
In less than 10 years Mykhailo Beilin was already better known as one of the most successful city restaurateurs, albeit in fairly narrow circles; the better-known restaurants were Kuvshyn, Dim Sum, Som and Vino e Cucino. After 2019 he began appearing in the media and talking about his success story.
The businessman described his rise in business as the result of his commercial talents, which he said emerged at 13. Admittedly, these were hindered by certain vacillations — he wanted to become a military officer and even graduated from the Kyiv Military Institute of Management and Communications, and later obtained a law degree. But his commercial streak prevailed and in 2001 Mykhailo Beilin founded the advertising company Promotion Technologies. He entered the restaurant business after 5 years, when in 2006 the online restaurant Pizza&Sushi 33 appeared, which operated delivery-only and was owned by him in partnership with others.
After 11 years Mykhailo Beilin sold that business, but by then he already owned a large number of brick-and-mortar restaurants united in the La Famiglia chain, which business media say includes 15 premium-class establishments. Among the latest operations is the opening of the chain’s second La Famiglia restaurant in the resort town of Bukovel. The restaurant can seat over 400 guests at once, and menu prices start at 250 hryvnias for a portion of potatoes with vegetables prepared according to the traditions of haute French cuisine.
Beilin himself, inspired by his brand’s expansion to Bukovel’s winter resorts, told Forbes-Ukraine that he is preparing to open his own hotel business there. This drew attention to his finances. According to the same Forbes-Ukraine, opening a restaurant in Bukovel costs between 1500 and 2500 dollars per square meter.
For two La Famiglia establishments of 2000 sq. m opened in 2024–2026, investment required ranges from 3 to 5 million dollars or from 120 to 225 million hryvnias. Note that the revenue of the entire La Famiglia chain in 2025, according to internet sources, amounted to about 400 million hryvnias, meaning two restaurants would be worth 30 to 50% of the brand’s total income. At the same time, although Mykhailo Beilin is a senior partner in the company, he is not the only one, so revenue is shared among other co-owners of the restaurants. And among those co-owners one should look for the answer to the question — what is the secret of Mykhailo Beilin’s business success.
But first — where did the money come from for the future successful restaurant owner. Did he earn for the restaurants, possibly, through dubious operations at Ukrzaliznytsia and in the Ministry of Agrarian Policy? Even before Mykhailo Beilin’s name began to be mentioned in the context of his successful restaurant business, in 2015–2016 he was talked about for entirely different reasons. At that time the public space was full of information about his influence over a number of state enterprises and even entire state agencies. As Komentari reported, in 2015 Mykhailo Beilin had influence over the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine.
In May he got into scandal — allegedly he tried to promote the appointment of his person to the post of head of the state enterprise Ukrspyrt, but the contest was canceled. At that time he was a rather non-public person, a successful restaurateur and owner of Kuvshyn, Dim Sum, Som and Vino e Cucino. In the last parliamentary elections Beilin ran on the Petro Poroshenko Bloc list at position 83, but did not make it into parliament.
Already after 2 months, in July 2015 the director of the engineering plant Ukrzalizbud, Viktor Rudenko, stated that officials of the state enterprise Ukrzaliznychpostach were likely engaged in procurement fraud by inflating the prices of goods and services they bought. Mykhailo Beilin could have overseen a “shadow office” of employees through Ukrzaliznychpostach’s CEO Yevhen Khoroshchak. In January 2016 the NABU opened criminal proceedings No. ¹52016000000000001.
According to the Bureau’s version, in April–November 2015 three officials of the state enterprise Ukrzaliznychpostach and an official of PJSC Ukrzaliznytsia, likely in collusion with representatives of private companies, purchased hardware products for the needs of Ukrzaliznychpostach at inflated prices. As a result, Ukrzaliznytsia suffered property losses of over 20 million hryvnias.
And in 2016 the same group of people tried to repeat the scheme. However, the Antimonopoly Committee obliged the branch “Production Support Center” of PJSC Ukrzaliznytsia (formerly the state enterprise Ukrzaliznychpostach) to cancel one of the procurements, through which the state could have lost 44 million hryvnias.
Later NABU uncovered the entire scheme — in addition to suppliers and officials, the participants included a then-member of parliament of Ukraine and an external advisor to the head of the Presidential Administration. According to Ukrainska Pravda, this involved former MP from the BPP Valeriy Ishchenko and Mykhailo Beilin. However, Beilin did not suffer any real punishment in the case of embezzling millions of hryvnias from Ukrzaliznytsia — only house arrest. On 5 June 2024 the High Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine released him from liability due to the statute of limitations — 5 years under the Criminal Code article “Abuse of influence.”
Note that LLC Inkomm, which was supposed to carry out that supply worth 44 million hryvnias and was stopped by the AMCU and NABU, according to the analytical service YouControl, received 218,5 million hryvnias in public procurements from the state enterprise Ukrzaliznychpostach in 2014–2015. From Boris Lozhkin to Volodymyr Zelensky — the ability to find a “patron” in power But how did an inconspicuous restaurateur manage to be “in charge of” two ministries and have the power to decide who would win public tenders?
The answer to this question, explaining Mykhailo Beilin’s influence in 2014–2016, is simple — joint business with the then head of the Presidential Administration Boris Lozhkin. As Mykhailo Beilin himself confirmed in one of his interviews, when opening the Italian restaurant Piccolino his initial partners included Boris Lozhkin and co-owner of the Dobrobut clinic Oleg Kalashnikov, and by 2021 Lozhkin had exited the partnership.
Later the restaurateur admitted that he met Lozhkin when Lozhkin owned Ukrainian Media Holding and Beilin oversaw the internet direction of the media business. But speaking of this, Mykhailo Beilin omitted that in a number of his firms — of which he has 20 — his partner is Boris Lozhkin’s wife, Nadiya Shalomova: - LLC La Famiglia Catering (activity — production of ready-made food and dishes, authorized capital — 1 million hryvnias), 80% is owned by the Cypriot company RLF Holding Limited, which, according to YouControl, is equally owned by Oleg Kalashnikov, Mykhailo Beilin, Nadiya Shalomova and another restaurateur Dmytro Halbmilion.
By the way, the company’s income grew from prewar times — from 19,4 million hryvnias in 2021 to 436 million in 2025; - LLC Dometi Ltd (activity — restaurant operations, provision of mobile food services, authorized capital — 50 thousand hryvnias), also 80% owned by the same RLF Holding Limited with the same group of participants. The company’s income also grew, though not as significantly — from 6,4 million hryvnias to 10,3 million hryvnias; - LLC Restaurant Kuvshyn (activity — restaurant operations, provision of mobile food services, authorized capital — 200 thousand hryvnias) 100% owned by RLF Holding Limited and brought its owners 20,8 million hryvnias in 2025. And this is far from a complete list of Mykhailo Beilin’s companies in which he is a business partner of Boris Lozhkin’s wife.
Moreover, since May 2026 Nadiya Shalomova became a business partner of Oleg Kalashnikov in his medical business — the Dobrobut group of medical companies. Then the twists in Mykhailo Beilin’s biography seem less surprising — the peak of influence of his partner Boris Lozhkin, who was head of President Petro Poroshenko’s Presidential Administration from June 2014 to August 2016, falls roughly on 2014–2015 and partially 2016.
In that situation Mykhailo Beilin could quite plausibly oversee ministries and allocate hundreds of millions of budget hryvnias to tenders. Everything changed with the resignation of Boris Lozhkin, who was appointed to the National Reform Council.
However, his influence likely sufficed to stall the NABU investigation until November 2019, until the court issued a decision to punish Mykhailo Beilin with nighttime arrest. And here we should recall what happened a month before the court hearing — the first press-marathon of the new president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, which on 10 October took place in the Kyiv Food Market food hall.
The owner of Kyiv Food Market is LLC Kyiv Food Market Management (activity — rental of own or leased real estate, authorized capital — 1000 hryvnias). 50% of the company is owned by the same RLF Holding Limited, and therefore by Oleg Kalashnikov, Mykhailo Beilin, Nadiya Shalomova and Dmytro Halbmilion. The company’s income in 2025 was 34,4 million hryvnias.
The choice of venue itself shows the hand of an experienced PR person, journalist or advertiser — roles both Boris Lozhkin and Mykhailo Beilin held at the start of their careers. However, if the idea to hold the event was proposed by Mykhailo Beilin, at first it did him little good, because a month after the president’s press-marathon he ended up under house arrest.
But the more interesting question is the owner of the remaining 50% of Kyiv Food Market Management, who is Bohdan Oleksandrovych Melnychenko. The Komentari portal could not determine who this person is, and public registry data point to 2 two individuals — from Odesa and Kyiv. But interestingly, Bohdan Oleksandrovych Melnychenko acquired 50% of Kyiv Food Market Management in May 2023. That is roughly 1 years and 1 months before Mykhailo Beilin’s release from criminal liability in the Ukrzaliznytsia case. A similar situation occurred with LLC KFM-bar (activity — restaurant operations, provision of mobile food services), in which Bohdan Melnychenko received 50% in May 2023, and with it a share of income that amounted to 32,7 million hryvnias in 2025.
Finally, a person with exactly the same full name appeared as an observer for the Servant of the People party at the extraordinary parliamentary elections on 21 July 2019.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Кримінальне провадження без вироку: від куратора Мінагрополітики до розпорядника пресмарафону Зеленського Михайла Бейліна". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: Rozsliduvach.
