The clan of Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has gained control of a valuable lithium ore deposit in the Kirovograd region.
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As the publication says, Avakov and the company, in order to get a valuable deposit, used front companies and did not even disdain the help of crime.
“Ukrainian Rare Metals LLC received permission for pilot industrial exploration of the Polokhovo lithium ore deposit only the second time. Neither in March nor in May deputies of the Kirovograd Regional Council were enthusiastic about transferring the deposit into unknown hands - to a recently created company without any experience in subsoil use. The Batkivshchyna faction helped push through the necessary decision and satisfy the request. On the eve of the re-vote, representatives of Ukrainian Rare Metals boasted to the regional council of a letter of guarantee that the head of Roman Druzhbin LLC received from a certain “potential investor.” A mysterious benefactor promised to invest $101 million in the field. As he allegedly already did with oil and gas fields in the Kharkov region,” the article says..
As it turned out later, such generous promises were made by the company Eternity (Asia) Limited from Hong Kong.
“Which, however, the Kharkov regional state administration for some reason has not heard of either. In general, there is practically no information in open sources. But if you scour the Internet well, you can find out: this Eternity (Asia) Limited was founded by a certain Trade delta ventures limited, an offshore company from the British Virgin Islands. The director of which is a Ukrainian, a resident of Dnepropetrovsk, Alexander Naumchik.
By another amazing coincidence, a man with the same name in 2007-2012 worked as an assistant to the people's deputy from the Fatherland party Dmitry Vetvitsky - the godfather of Yevgenia Tymoshenko and the long-term partner of her mother, Yulia Tymoshenko, in work at the Unified Energy Systems of Ukraine. The paths diverged for a while in 2011: Yulia Vladimirovna went to jail, Arsen Avakov fled from the same fate to Italy, and Dmitry Vetvitsky simply left Batkivshchyna and even tried to get into parliament from the Pravda party (unsuccessfully).” , – noted in the publication.
Dmitry Vetvitsky
Journalists found out what connects the director of Ukrainian Rare Metals Roman Druzhbin with Batkivshchyna and another thread: the story of how his LLC Kharkivenergoprom won a tender from the State Service of Geology and Subsoil in 2015 and received for use (special permit for exploration and production of oil and gas) in the West Gutskaya area.
“The tender, however, was completely “partnership”: the only competitor of Kharkivenergoprom was Energotel LLC, owned by the same Druzhbin. And the reason why the State Geological Resources Agency turned a blind eye to this is the same guarantees from an investor from Hong Kong! And the fact that the head of the State Geological Service Nikolai Boyarkov also managed to be an assistant to the people’s deputy from Batkivshchyna. His patron was Yuriy Tregubov, a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of the sixth convocation and the son of Tymoshenko’s personal secretary Olga Tregubova. Oh yes: the Ministry of Ecology then also applied to the Batkivshchyna quota. As for Arsen Avakov, he found access to the Polokhovskoye field through Druzhbin,” the publication says.
Roman Druzhbin.
The publication notes that Roman Druzhbin is the founder and director of five companies that already have permission to conduct research on the industrial development of minerals and have submitted new applications, in particular, in the Zhytomyr region.
“According to Druzhbin himself, he has been engaged in geological exploration in Ukraine and abroad for more than 15 years. During this time, both experience and business connections have been accumulated. For example, with Alexander Pavlyuchenko, a criminal authority nicknamed Sasha Braslet. Back in 2005, they together founded the Central Oil and Gas Transport Company. But that was more than 10 years ago. Today Pavlyuchenko is an assistant to people’s deputy Igor Kotvitsky (People’s Front party), who was accused last year of illegally withdrawing $40 million,” the publication says.
The criminal case on this matter somehow “stuck” by itself, and Avakov personally vouched for Kotvitsky: they say, he has known him since the turbulent 90s.
“You won’t believe it - we extracted gas together! And it cannot be that Kotvitsky has some “not so” millions. Don’t you believe the Minister of Internal Affairs? But there is one point. Before becoming Kotvitsky’s assistant, “Braslet”-Pavlyuchenko was an assistant to People’s Deputy Nikolai Zlochevsky, the former Minister of Environment, owner of Krymtopenergoservis LLC. Which, together with Crimea Petroleum Company LLC, produced gas in Crimea. It was this Petroleum Company that bred 40 million greens in a manner unknown to science. And before that, another Zlochevsky enterprise, Yutexnaftogaz LLC, also came under the control of people from Avakov’s circle,” the investigation notes.
“The practice appears to be well established. And now, cooperation with Sasha-Braslet (who, by the way, is also called Avakov’s godfather) has helped Roman Druzhbin get his hands on a potentially attractive deposit in the Kirovograd region. And at the same time strengthen the sphere of influence and enrichment of the Minister of Internal Affairs,” note the authors of the investigation.