What distinguished Rustem Umerov for a year in the Ministry of Defense

Diana Davityan, whose brother Vemir was suspected of stealing humanitarian aid from the United States, was appointed to the position of advisor to the Patronage Service of the Minister of Defense of Ukraine: shadow connections or lack of reforms

During the year of Rustem Umerov’s tenure as head of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, there were no significant changes to improve the work of the department. Moreover, in 2023, Diana Davityan, whose brother Vemir Davityan was suspected of stealing humanitarian aid from the United States, was appointed advisor to the Patronage Service of the Minister of Defense of Ukraine. Therefore, StopCor analysts looked into Vemir Davityan’s connections with officials of the Office of the President and asked whether he was really the “supervisor” for Zaporozhye.

After the dismissal of ex-Minister of Defense Alexei Reznikov, who disgraced himself when purchasing Turkish jackets for the Ukrainian military with a full advance payment of $30 million and eggs for 17 hryvnia, Rustem Umerov was appointed to the post of Minister of Defense of Ukraine. He was widely seen as an effective manager. But increasingly today the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, headed by Umerov, is called the “Ministry of Chaos.” And the Anti-Corruption Center on its Facebook page explains this by saying that today there has been a managerial collapse in the ministry.

So this is explained by the fact that one area of ​​work is controlled by several deputies at once, and therefore it is not always clear who is responsible for what. For example, as Ukrainskaya Pravda writes, five more deputies are simultaneously involved in international cooperation in parallel with the minister himself: First Deputy Minister Ivan Gavrilyuk, Deputy for the Development of Military Equipment and Weapons Alexander Sergei (and his Department of Military Technical Policy), Specialized Deputy for European Integration Alexander Balanutsa (and his Department of International Defense Cooperation), Deputy for Institutional Development Stanislav Gaider (coordinating the work of capability coalitions), Deputy for Procurement Dmitry Klimenkov (and his Policy Department procurement).

But at the same time, a lot of international cooperation is de facto coordinated by the Advisor to the Patronage Service of the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Diana Davityan, who, in particular, is responsible for strategic communications at the Ministry of Defense.

Davityan is a professional journalist. Previously, she worked as a political observer in the Focus magazine and was a PR manager for the founder of Ukr-China Communications LLC, Vyacheslav Lysenko. And already in 2019, she was creating content for the “Voice” party.

But it is not this information that is interesting, but the fact that she is the sister of Vemir Davityan, a Zaporozhye businessman, and the daughter of Suren Vemirovich Davityan, a deputy of the Zaporozhye City Council.

An ordinary Zaporozhye businessman with “high” friends

Who is Vemir Davityan and why did StopCor journalists become interested in him? So, according to official information from Opendatabot, he is the owner of 5 companies: Law Firm Novem LLC (Kiev), DV Invest LLC (Kyiv), BIZGRUPP LLC (Kyiv), DV Development Group LLC (Kyiv ) and LLC "Group 9" (Dnepr); in the first two he is the director.

These firms have a variety of activities: sand, gravel and clay mining; car rental, property management, security activities, production of hookah tobacco. As an individual entrepreneur, Vemir Surenovic provides services in the field of law.

It is also known that the businessman supports the Zaporozhye Chess Federation, sponsors city tournaments, is himself involved in chess, crossfit and collects rare car brands.

But if you look at the official income of his companies, they are small. For example, Law Firm Novem LLC is generally in the red in 2022 and there is no more data. Law Firm Novem LLC has a negative indicator in 2023.

So, the question arises: where do the funds for expensive cars and sponsorship come from?

By the way, Vemir Davityan calls David Arakhamia his friend and visits the Office of the President, although he denies his involvement in resolving any issues on behalf of the OP. Journalists have repeatedly noticed that Vemir Davityan’s Mercedes car picked up David Arakhamia near the President’s Office.

He himself explained it this way: “I agreed to meet with David Arakhamia, we know each other and have been friends for many years. We agreed to meet there (under the OP – ed.), I picked him up, and we went and had dinner. (...) I do not supervise any issues other than my life and my business. I am not at all interested in what is happening in the Office of the President, what is happening in the faction in which the head of the faction is my friend. Just like he’s not interested in what’s going on at my work.”

Today he is also the director of the International Charitable Foundation of Alexander Petrovsky “Solidarity”

Zaporizhzhya watcher and stolen humanitarian aid

And although all of Davityan’s companies are registered in Kyiv and Dnieper, he also does business in the Zaporozhye region. It was also not successful enough, because it got into a scandal with the theft of humanitarian aid. It is Vemir Davityan who is called the organizer of the scheme for the mass theft of humanitarian aid in the regions. According to media reports, Davityan Vemir Surenovich made money from this together with Narik-Petrovsky.

By the way, in Zaporozhye Davityan is also called the shadow curator of the region from the Servants of the People, who can resolve any issues.

Political scientist Alexander Kochetkov wrote about this case on his Facebook page.

Then they talked about the possible involvement of officials of the Zaporozhye region in this: the chairman of the Zaporizhzhya OVA Alexander Starukh, the secretary of the Zaporozhye City Council Anatoly Kurtev, the deputy of the Zaporozhye City Council Viktor Shcherbina and the deputy chairman of the Zaporozhye OVA Zlata Nekrasova.

However, the joint investigation of the Security Service of Ukraine and the National Anti-Corruption Bureau on criminal proceedings into the theft of humanitarian aid from the United States, loudly announced in August 2022, does not seem to have yielded results.

And later, on November 21, information appeared that 200 tons of stolen humanitarian aid were found at one of the local enterprises. It was as if she had been handed over to the military. And three days later another 300 tons were found. The food spoiled so everything had to be thrown away. Imagine, when the whole world tried to help our military, which was insufficiently supplied with food, tons of food was simply thrown into the trash.

If we talk about Vemir Davityan’s connection with Zaporozhye officials, then the scandal with the humanitarian aid is just one case among many. For example, it is Vemir Davityan who is associated with the scandalous company Sensar Group (SENSAR GROUP LLC), which includes Stroy-Technology LLC, which tried to restore Okhmatdyt. So this developer is associated with the Marchenko brothers. And according to the Lviv publication Outpost, in 2015, ex-governor of the Zaporozhye region Grigory Samardak introduced Marchenko to businessman Vemir Davityan. Since then, as they write in Outpost, their friendship has been strengthened by joint business projects. This is probably why Sensar Group, having an authorized capital of 10 thousand hryvnia, took on the millionth contract. After all, I don’t really believe in the naivety of officials who could so easily give more than 300 million hryvnia to a company without the necessary experience. The information source Znaj.ua also writes about this friendly relationship. Here journalists call Marchenko and Davityan allies.

Consequently, Diana Davityan’s arrival at the Ministry of Defense apparently did not happen by chance. And looking at the connections and affairs of her brother Vemir, it’s somehow hard to imagine that with such leadership this ministry will become a “ministry of victory,” but time will tell.

StopCor analysts submitted inquiries to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, the Zaporozhye OVA and the management of the Sensar Group (SENSAR GROUP LLC) regarding possible connections with Vemir Davityan. Also, requests were sent personally to Diana Davityan and political scientist Alexander Kochetkov for comment.