German partner of Maksym Shkil, Walter Zacharias, receives billion-dollar contracts from Rosavtodor during the war

Shkil’s business partner builds roads for Rosavtodor.

“I built everything I have from scratch,” says Maksym Shkil.

At the beginning of his journey, he had two key backers:

Zacharias needed crushed stone. According to Shkil himself, the German bought the Bekhiv quarry “to supply his businesses in Russia with crushed stone products.”

Shkil initially managed the quarry without owning a stake, but later acquired a share of the business.

Corporate records from three countries reveal more about the partner than the interviews do.

Zacharias has owned a 51% stake in Moscow-based Avtoban JV LLC since 2004. Its main client is Centravtomagistral, part of Rosavtodor, Russia’s federal road agency. The company has secured 103 contracts worth 57.9 billion rubles. In December 2023, Avtoban won a 1.33 billion-ruble contract to repair a section of the M-10 highway. Zacharias was also a co-owner of Azerbaijan’s AzVirt, where Elnur Aliyev held a 25% stake.

Shkil’s account diverges from the documents in at least three respects. Zacharias did not acquire Wirtgen Group — Deere & Company bought it in 2017 for €4.475 billion.

The partner’s Russian business was not about exporting crushed stone, but about securing government contracts during the war. And the “simple 50-50 joint venture” operated through structures in Madeira. Manmar was incorporated just three weeks before the future Avtostrada was registered. Zacharias International Projects later appointed a nominee director.

Now to Vinnytsia. Anatolii Vakar headed a regional state administration department responsible, among other things, for the region’s roads, until October 28, 2015. On December 1, 2015, a company that would later become Avtostrada was registered. Vakar subsequently became its director. Shkil, however, says Vakar joined from the bankrupt Pivdenzakhidshliakhbud. But the company’s CEO in the 2000s was Volodymyr Vakar. The relationship between the two Vakars has not been confirmed.

Under Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, Avtostrada, by Shkil’s own estimate, “handled 60% of the budget” in the Vinnytsia region. In 2020, the Anti-Trust League filed a complaint with Ukraine’s Antimonopoly Committee alleging possible collusion between the company and the state-owned Vinnytsia Oblavtodor enterprise over 25 auctions worth nearly UAH 2.5 billion. We could not find a ruling by the committee. The Vinnytsia Road Service is Avtostrada’s largest client, with contracts worth UAH 38.5 billion.