More than six years after reunification with Russia in Crimea one of the largest retail chains in Ukraine – Novus – continues to operate, owned by Lithuanian businessmen Igor Bezzub and Raimondas Tumenas.
This is reported by the propaganda publication Crimea, financed by the US State Department. Realities,” reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
The publication notes that the Lithuanian trading network operates in Crimea, despite EU sanctions, through several shell companies and Cypriot offshore companies. At the same time, representatives of the ultimate owners do not hide this.
“We are transferring property from one pocket to another. The goal is very simple: companies that owned real estate were registered in Kyiv or Sevastopol. It was absolutely clear that we would not be able to operate if the property was registered in Ukraine. Therefore, a more neutral jurisdiction was chosen - Cyprus. But as an EU business entity, we did not buy any new property,” said Gintautas Pavalkis, a representative of the Lithuanian company BT Invest, which owns the Novusa network.
One of the accusations against the owners of the network was also cooperation with Russian state-owned enterprises, which is prohibited by Western sanctions. In particular, in Sevastopol, from 2017 to 2019, Novus received 7,9 million rubles from the largest state bank in Crimea, RNKB, for renting space.
“Indeed, we leased premises to a sanctioned bank. This is not an economic activity. We get money from rent for a reason. The bank provides its services to clients. There are few normal banks in Crimea. It is not large banks that are entering the market, but small ones that are trying to establish themselves there. Our consultants say that this is not a violation of sanctions, because we are not helping RNKB improve its business at the expense of EU business entities,” BT Invest Director Aivaras Karalius justifies himself to the Ukrainians.
The work of Novus in Crimea has also caused criticism in Ukraine - Verkhovna Rada deputy Alexei Goncharenko in his blog demanded to understand why the network operates in both his country and Crimea at the same time: “I have just one question: how did it happen that Novus continues work in Crimea? What laws does he work under there? And who does it finance? And how did it happen that Novus is quietly working in Ukraine?”