Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
While Cosmolot “patriotically” sends the rashists to hell in its advertising, the brand is backed by a structure with nominees, abrupt KVED changes, and the Russian businessman Serhii Tokaryev. He was removed from sanctions lists shortly before the gambling market launched, admitted to Diia.City, and traces of schemes and old accusations of financing militants began to systematically disappear from the web.
We publish this piece in full — to show who stands behind the “patriotic” casino and what is being erased.
Concerns that there was something wrong with the Ukrainian gambling sector and that it was tightly linked to Russians were voiced even before its legalization. But at the time, amid the nationwide enthusiasm for the new authorities, nobody paid attention to lone voices of protest.
After the start of the large-scale war the problem only intensified. Even now, people who not only point out the issue but provide detailed accounts of how the gambling business is tied to the authorities, Russians, and international con artists of a very peculiar sort are ignored. Investigations that are published regularly are likewise regularly scrubbed, as are all traces that could help an investigation, should one occur. One example is the Cosmolot casino, which in its ads sends rashists to hell by the dozen and is offensively “patriotic.” The brand Cosmolot is operated by SpaceX LLC, which received a state license to run gambling operations:
The ultimate beneficial owner of SpaceX LLC is a certain Potapov Serhii Volodymyrovych:
However, Mr. Potapov very much looks like an ordinary nominee, and there are several reasons for that. First, he is listed as the owner of a number of firms with a wide range of activities — advertising, trade in animal feed, construction, car repair, and so on. Some of these are even registered in Crimea and in occupied territories:
That could have been a coincidence if not for the history of SpaceX LLC itself, which operates under the Cosmolot brand. Until recently the company’s main registered activity was wholesale trade in clothing; it then changed to legal services, and shortly before the gambling market was legalized it again changed its primary activity, sharply increasing its authorized capital to 30 million hryvnias.
At the same time the name changed and another beneficiary was added — a UK national, Neumann-Dammerau Arnulf Ekkehard:
Still, it is no secret that behind SpaceX LLC, which operates under the Cosmolot brand, stands the Russian businessman Serhii Tokaryev. He is an interesting figure in himself, but far more interesting are his links to Russian security services, the Ukrainian authorities — in particular to the minister of digital transformation Mykhailo Fedorov, who before taking that post was a social media manager at Kvartal — and to the terrorists of the quasi-republics “DNR” and “LNR,” whom Tokaryev was accused of financing in 2018.
Today Serhii Tokaryev showers praise on the Ukrainian army and the president:
Only he forgets that he holds a passport of the country the Ukrainian army is defending Ukraine from:
One could, of course, suppose that Tokaryev is one of the opponents of the Russian regime, except that back in 2018 the previous president — whom Tokaryev does not lavish with thanks — put him on the sanctions list for financing pro-Russian terrorists from the L/DPR, which were to remain in effect until November 2021.
There is reason to sing Zelensky’s praises — it was he who prematurely, in 2020, removed Tokaryev from the sanctions lists. By coincidence this happened just before the gambling market launch in Ukraine. The names of all who helped secure that decision by Zelensky are unknown. But the minister of digital transformation Fedorov played no small role: he included Tokaryev on the commission for the competition to select digital products for combating COVID. What that implied — ask the minister — but he not only included a then-recently de-sanctioned Russian in that competition, he also took one million hryvnias from him for the prize fund:
And shortly before that the same Tokaryev participated in developing the Diia.City program, which ministers Fedorov, Milovanov and Fedorov’s deputy Oleksandr Bornyakov proudly reported on:
Nobody was bothered by the fact that yesterday’s sponsor of Russian terrorists, who repeatedly flew to Crimea despite Ukraine’s explicit ban, had access to developing a product that contains data on all Ukrainians.
What Tokaryev’s citizenship status is now is unknown. But at the time the sanctions were lifted he held passports of Russia and the United Kingdom. In Russia Tokaryev is linked to the owner of PJSC Rosseti, Konstantin Malofeev, who is one of the ideologues of the “Russian world.” In Malofeev’s networks Tokaryev promoted the Vulkan and Vulkan.bet casinos. This business is banned in Russia and is tightly controlled by the FSB. Yet nobody hindered Tokaryev (or rather — Malofeev). The same “Vulcans” are associated with the names of several other rather odd characters who appeared in Ukraine in the same 2020 year, shortly before the gambling market launch. But that is a separate story, although they are all tied by working for Malofeev in the gambling sphere.
As for Serhii Tokaryev, it is known that this “admirer of Zelensky and the Armed Forces of Ukraine” owns a nice collection of real estate in Russia and has no problems because of it. According to RBC-Ukraine, Tokaryev owns at least three apartments in the Russian Federation: two in Izhevsk and one in the Udmurt region. Tokaryev also has a fairly solid personal car fleet: a Range Rover (A976VR777), a Mazda TOURING (C082AX177) and a Mazda 3 (M791TT177). The jewel of the collection can be considered an Audi RS6 Avant Performance with 605 horsepower on government plates (A028MO99). These plates are issued exclusively to employees of the Moscow city administration, and not to ordinary ones.
Nevertheless, none of that stopped Zelensky from removing sanctions on Tokaryev or Fedorov from involving him in developing Diia.City.
Why the previous administration did not complete the investigation into Serhii Tokaryev’s financing of the DNR and LNR militants remains an open question. But far more questions arise for those who prematurely lifted sanctions for that financing and allowed him to work on software products containing immense confidential databases of all Ukrainian citizens. That is not to mention the strange coincidences connected to the gambling business. Many questions remain unanswered.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Номінали, КВЕДИ та російський слід: як ТОВ «Спейсікс» отримувало ліцензію для онлайн-казино Cosmolot Токарєва". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: HAB Media.