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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
Million-scale losses to the state and shadowy operators: how Tsyura, Tron and Lohnov are blocking the future of the Odesa Port Plant
The Odesa Port Plant (OPP) has again come into the spotlight—this time because of yet another failed privatization attempt. 19 October 2026, an auction to sell 99,5667% of the company’s shares with a starting price of more than 4,3 billion UAH did not take place: no participant submitted a bid. This was already the sixth attempt.
State Property Fund head Dmytro Natalukha explained the auction’s failure by saying that some American investors decided to wait for the results of the U.S. midterm elections on 3 November. Maintaining the mothballed plant costs the state about 62 million UAH per month.
Against the backdrop of financial difficulties and repeated sale attempts, names that previously appeared in journalistic investigations into nontransparent gas tenders and OPP export contracts are being mentioned again: Ukrainian-Swiss businessman Oleg Tsyura, crypto-entrepreneur Serhiy Tron and the “resurrected” Dmytro Malynovskyi. Publications from 2024–2025, as well as recent materials from 2026, document that these individuals are actively trying to scrub mentions of the schemes from the information space.
Nontransparent tenders in 2024 and ties to Lohnov
In July 2024, OPP held a tender for gas supply, which was won by a little-known Kharkiv firm, Company “Agrotorggroup.” The company appeared only in 2022 and earlier took part in a dubious auction to sell seized Russian ammonia. A second tender in August was won by the Lviv LLC Ukrnaftohazburinnia, which only received its license in September 2023. The company had no official website, although that is a mandatory condition for obtaining a license. The firm’s beneficiary is listed as Lviv biker and co-owner of FC Luzhany, Mykhailo Mazur.
According to the investigative authors, these tenders were backed by Vitaliy Lohnov—an informal adviser to the head of the United Mining and Chemical Company who also had influence over Sumykhimprom and OPP. Olga Balyuk was listed as Agrotorggroup’s CEO; she previously headed LLC LT-Resource, where Lohnov himself is listed as the beneficiary. Agrotorggroup appears in BEB criminal proceeding No. 7202200041000000 concerning evasion of taxes on an especially large scale. Lohnov himself was previously a suspect in the 2016 case concerning seizure of property through abuse of office and was at one point wanted. The case never reached a conviction.
According to investigations, the winning companies lacked sufficient funds to pay for the gas, tried to obtain supply from the GTS without an advance, and recorded prices below market. This created risks for the stability of the gas transmission system.
Tsyura, Tron and White Rock Management
Oleg Tsyura, who holds Swiss citizenship, appears in materials as a person connected to shell companies in the schemes around OPP and UMHK. Through structures such as Phoenix Resources AG and German firms, journalists say the country of origin of raw materials (including ferrochrome) may have been falsified to bypass sanctions in favor of Russian beneficiaries linked to Dmytro Firtash.
Serhiy Tron, who is associated with White Rock Management AG (registered in Switzerland in 2018, with registration documents filed by, among others, Oleg Tsyura), presents himself as a crypto investor and publisher of Bitcoin Magazine. At the same time, publications from 2025–2026 recall his role in the CityCommerce Bank story, from which, in 2014, investigators say tens of millions of euros disappeared. Those funds, the materials allege, later “surfaced” in mining farms and crypto structures. Tron and Tsyura, the authors claim, actively file DMCA complaints and use other mechanisms to remove materials about the schemes from search results.
Dmytro Malynovskyi, who was previously declared “dead,” is also mentioned in connection with these schemes. Several outlets recorded attempts to cleanse the internet of mentions of him, Tsyura and Tron during 2024–2026.
Despite numerous publications, criminal proceedings against the key figures in the scheme around OPP are progressing slowly. The plant remains mothballed, accumulates losses, and costs the budget tens of millions of hryvnias each month.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Мільйонні збитки держави та тіньові ділки: як Цюра, Тронь і Логінов блокують майбутнє Одеського припортового". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: ANTIKOR.
