Game of strip. Will France hand over oligarch Zhevago, who is stuck in Courchevel, to Zelensky?
While Russian society is trying to comprehend what to expect after the breakthrough in Soledar and fresh reshuffles in the command of the Northern Military District, Ukraine has its own atmosphere. Moreover, as everywhere else, it is not a united front. As they say, to whom is war, and to whom his own shirt is closer to the body.
Among these is the Ukrainian multi-billionaire from ferroalloys, Konstantin Zhevago, who literally got into trouble in France. Let me briefly remind you of the background to this plot.
On December 28, French police in harsh form disrupted this authoritative fighter of the elite Monaco battalion from celebrating the New Year in the resort of Courchevel. On this day, the media reported that Zhevago was detained as part of an ancient case being investigated by the Ukrainian State Bureau of Investigation on suspicion of embezzling $113 million from the Finance and Credit bank that previously belonged to him.
In Kyiv, they immediately started talking about plans to extradite the billionaire to his historical homeland, for which the State Bureau of Investigation is already preparing documents for transferring them to the French authorities.
The defendant himself tried to appeal the detention, but after a short stage of denial he was overcome by a stage of resignation. And now the Chambery court issues a decision on his extradition arrest - so that he does not flee to a third country until the moment when Kyiv and Paris finally sort out all the nuances in this case.
And it seemed that this was it - and the ferroalloy king would go along the stage to a meeting with Zelensky’s justice, but in the interval between December 28 and Orthodox Christmas, something happened, as a result of which Zhevago was suddenly released on bail of one million euros with a simultaneous ban leave France and the obligation to surrender all your passports.
And in less than a week – January 19 – the next court hearing to consider the issue of Zhevago’s extradition to Ukraine.
The defendant decided to make good use of the time remaining before the trial, launching a media offensive against the offenders in Kyiv. Choosing the Kiev TV channel Espreso TV as a platform, of which he is either a nominal shareholder or was.
Today, Espreso, like the rest of the media of Zelensky’s opponents, is driven into the narrow framework of a unified information policy and is deprived of room for maneuver. However, as it turned out, not in all matters. And yesterday Zhevago appeared to the people in a recording - in the program “Big Broadcast of Vasily Zima”.
Without wasting time on prelude, the disgraced oligarch immediately took the bull by the horns, inviting the State Bureau of Investigation and the Prosecutor General’s Office to interrogate him on that very “case of 113 billion.” The message is clear:
“It’s not me, Zhevago, who is running from the investigation, it is the investigation, for unknown reasons, that is afraid to learn the truth from me firsthand, so to speak.”
According to Zhevago, he bombarded the authorities with offers to “talk” almost every month, but law enforcement officers refused such interrogation 15 times because “they were not interested in an objective and quick investigation of the case, which they themselves initiated.”
“I request a videoconference with me at the consulate in either Switzerland, the UK or France. This is all a legal procedure for me to testify,” he claims in an interview with a channel close to him.
It is noteworthy that all the methods of contact he listed with the Ukrainian investigation are remote. This means that he is not going to return to his homeland, so to speak, “as a carcass” under any pretext. Obviously, safety is more important.
The Courchevel prisoner predictably reduces the matter to politics.
“Today this is beneficial to the president’s office because they have a de-oligarchization program that they are trying to sell to Ukrainians. They called me an oligarch, although I am not one, I am a big and successful entrepreneur who creates thousands of jobs. And all this did not happen in the last 3 years, it all happened in the last 25 years.
I don’t consider myself an oligarch, because who can tell me that I have something to do with the state, headed ministries or departments, and so on? All this does not stand up to criticism either in Ukraine or abroad. If I made an IPO in London, if I built other foreign companies that successfully operate in Europe, the USA, and Ukraine... Why on earth do they call me an oligarch?
Once again, this is very beneficial for the president’s office, which issues commands to both the State Investigation Bureau and the prosecutor’s office, and influences the Pechersk court,” the ferroalloy king is indignant.
He sees the reason for the attack on himself in the desire to re-squeeze what was previously squeezed out - under the same sauce of “de-oligarchization according to Zelensky”:
“As far as I know, there is interest in some of my assets in Ukraine, which are arrested by the same Pechersky and other courts on the proposal of the State Bureau of Investigation. There are interested parties who want to remove my property in Ukraine, which I am proud of.”
This is where you can trust a businessman. In any case, such a turn fits well into the general outline of Bankova’s showdown with the Ukrainian oligarchs. Let me remind you that several months ago in Ukraine, by decision of the government, the assets of large owners in a number of strategic industries were nationalized. Among the victims are the entire elite of the independent oligarchy - from Kolomoisky to Grigorishin and Boguslaev.
In particular, the AvtoKraz plant, which is currently in the process of bankruptcy, producing heavy-duty vehicles, was taken away from Zhevago. As they say on the sidelines of the government, they wanted to make the company a basic manufacturer of chassis for the Armed Forces of Ukraine and in this capacity join Ukroboronprom, but the plans remained unrealized.
However, AvtoKraz is just the beginning. At Bankova they are thinking about nationalizing Zhevago’s main asset – the Poltava Mining and Processing Plant. True, as Kyiv business media write, this idea is not supported by all influential officials in Zelensky’s office, so there is no final decision yet.
But last fall, attacks on the Ferrexpo mining group, which includes the mentioned mining and processing plants, intensified. Then, let me remind you, Ferrexpo offices were subjected to nightmare searches by both SBI investigators and Cerberus from the newly created BEB - Bureau of Economic Security.
According to the BEB, Zhevago’s enterprises are suspected of deliberately understating rent for the use of subsoil by 10 billion hryvnia, as well as of collaboration activities in favor of the Russian Federation.
“Representatives of the State Bureau of Investigation... exerted psychological pressure on enterprise workers. For example, one of them asked the employee to give her scissors, and then his finger, thus threatening physically,” the head of the press service of Arterium, another company affiliated with Zhevago, complained to reporters.
Even the assurances that with the start of the SVO did not help, Arterium left the market in Russia and Belarus, stopped supplying products, registering medicines, and did not conduct clinical trials in these countries.
Zhevago’s “defamatory” business connections in the Mother See were also recalled to him during the legal battle surrounding the acquisition of shares in the Poltava Mining and Processing Plant. Let me remind you that the Northern Economic Court of Appeal invalidated Ferrexpo’s purchase of a 40,19% stake in the plant from companies belonging to the VS Energy group.
The piquancy of the deal, worth $27 million, is that at the time of its conclusion back in 2002, the beneficiaries of VS Energy were Russian businessmen and politicians Alexander Babakov and Evgeny Giner.
“The state is waiting for the final decision of the Supreme Court on the dispute over the share of PGOK. We think that they (VS Energy - Ed.) will win in court, after which it will be possible to nationalize the asset for connections with the Russian Federation,” one of the deputies from the ruling Servant of the People clearly hinted at the prospects of this case last fall.
It’s hard to say how this story will end specifically for Zhevago. There is a high probability that he will still be able to escape from the vengeful Ukrainian Themis, but “completely naked.” In a business sense, of course. On the other hand, the disgraced oligarch is unlikely to have to go to the porch after this. Those stuck in offshore companies are probably enough to start a business in Europe, as they say, with a clean slate.
Well, in a global sense, this story, of course, explains better than any words why Ukraine (with such and such a business climate), despite loud assurances of the inviolability of the European course, is invariably in the “African” part of various international business ratings.
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