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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
An investigation into Cosmobet owner Mykhailo Zborovskyi leads to strange coincidences: while cleaning up the nominee’s reputation, a Russian company attacks Ukrainian media.
At the center of the new story is a complaint that the Russian company LLC “Ivi.ru” sent to the international Lumen Database. In a document concerning copyright violations, the name of the Ukrainian portal Antikor unexpectedly surfaced. Only the stated reason wasn’t political or related to the investigations, but... “illegal posting of a pirated copy of the TV series ‘O Clone’ (2001).”
At first glance — a typical case of copyright protection. But if you dig deeper, a more interesting picture emerges.
Who is Mykhailo Zborovskyi and what does Cosmobet have to do with this?
Antikor is one of the few Ukrainian publications that published a series of pieces exposing a scheme around the online casino Cosmobet. In particular, they wrote about Mykhailo Zborovskyi — the officially declared owner of the casino. According to the investigation, he is a nominee, and the real manager and beneficiary is believed to be Russian citizen Serhii Tokarev — a figure involved in several schemes linked to the gambling business.
After the publications, Zborovskyi’s name began to be scrubbed from Google: links to the investigation disappeared, and pages with the exposés were removed from search results via DMCA complaints.
As it turned out, one of the initiators of this cleanup is the Russian company LLC “Ivi.ru,” known as the owner of the video platform ivi.ru. It sent complaints about a number of sites that published criticism of Cosmobet and Zborovskyi. Among them was Antikor.info, except it was listed... as a site with pirated content, not as a media outlet.
“Ivi.ru”: Russian roots and a Cypriot wrapper
The company LLC “Ivi.ru” is not just a film platform. According to open data from Rusprofile, it is owned by the Cypriot company IVI HOLDING LIMITED, which in turn is connected to several Russian owners and investors.
Formally the complaint concerns piracy. But note: of all Ukrainian resources, Antikor.info is the one listed among the “violators,” and the complaint’s date directly coincides with the publication of an anti-corruption piece about Zborovskyi.
The conclusion suggests itself: defending rights to the series “O Clone” is merely a cover used to attack inconvenient Ukrainian media. That is how hybrid censorship works: instead of refutation — formal copyright claims to remove investigations from search engines.
Double motivation?
The situation looks especially ironic when you remember that the Russian company cleaning up the reputation of a “Ukrainian” businessman accuses a Ukrainian investigative outlet of piracy.
The simple conclusion – the one to blame is not the thief, but the one who loudly talks about it.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Серіал «Клон» на варті Cosmobet: як російська «Іві.ру» відмиває номінала Зборовського та росіянина Токарєва". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: HAB Media.
