Grabbers, sun, wind and earth

Land for green energy and subsoil use in the Lviv region is leased by companies associated with deputies and officials

Rating of companies that have received the most land for renewable energy and subsoil mining facilities in the Lviv region in recent years. Some of them turned out to be associated with famous politicians.

To do this research, NGL.media journalists turned to the Lviv Regional Military Administration (LOMA) with a request to provide information on all orders for 2018-2024 on the lease of plots for the construction and maintenance of wind and solar power plants, as well as the lease of plots associated with subsoil use.

In response, they received copies of documents for 2018-2021, as well as assurances from LOG that since the end of May 2021, no more relevant orders have been issued.

But this turned out to be untrue. On May 31 last year, LOVA leased almost 5 hectares near the Kyiv-Chop highway in the Stryisky district to the Horizons Drilling Company LLC for 20 years. For some reason, LOVA decided to hide this, although the decision was published on the official website and was even written about in the news. Probably due to the fact that the owner of Horizons is Zinovy ​​Kozitsky, the father of LOVA chairman Maxim Kozitsky.

After NGL.media discovered such selectivity in providing information, journalists decided to compare copies of documents provided by LOVA with those published on its official website. This helped to find three more orders on the transfer of sites for power plants and subsoil use to various public and private companies, which LOVA, for unknown reasons, did not provide in response to the request.

These companies turned out to be the state enterprise Zarechnaya Mine, Truskavets Medical Waters LLC and Wind Power GIS LLC.

Until 2020, the Truskavets Medical Waters company belonged to people from the circle of ex-regional leader Yuri Boyko. Now its beneficiaries are the former deputy chief military prosecutor of Anatoly Matios, Vladimir Zherbitsky, and a resident of the Kyiv region, Svetlana Korniyko.

In 2015, it was Zherbitsky who investigated the case of oligarch Sergei Kurchenko’s transactions with liquefied gas, one of the accomplices of which was named Yuri Boyko. However, the prosecutor’s office never found official evidence of Boyko’s involvement; Zherbitsky soon retired, and a few years later he suddenly became the owner of a share of Truskavets Healing Waters. After this, the Office of the Prosecutor General even opened proceedings against his former colleague, suspecting that the change of owners of the company could be a kind of bribe.

Wind Power GIS LLC, which invests in the construction of wind power plants, is owned by Lviv businessman Ivan Torsky. In 2011-2012, he was included in the ranking of the richest Ukrainians; his fortune at that time was estimated at more than $300 million. In 2006 and 2007, Torsky tried twice to become a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada, but was unsuccessful both times.

Largest tenants

The largest number of land plots - more than 115 hectares - in 2018-2021. rented for the construction of solar power plants to companies from the group of Dubnevich brothers. Bohdan Dubnevich now heads the Solonkiv community near Lviv, and his younger brother Yaroslav Dubnevich is on the international wanted list on suspicion of embezzlement of public funds.

In second place in terms of the area of ​​leased land are Smerechanskaya Wind Farm LLC and Karpatskaya Wind Farm LLC. Their beneficiaries, through the Cypriot Plotsun Holdings Limited, are director Igor Ronchevich and Swiss citizen Anton Daniel Wyss.

According to OpenCorporates, the name Anton Wyss appears in more than a hundred offshore companies in Cyprus and Panama. He's probably just a nominal owner. The real investor in the construction of the Carpathian and Smerechanskaya wind farms is the Ukrainian entrepreneur Igor Yankovsky, the son of the former people’s deputy of the region Nikolai Yankovsky.

Third place in the ranking was taken by Sky Energy Ukraine LLC, which in 2018 received a lease of a plot of 26.4 hectares. However, last year the court terminated this agreement and returned the land to the Novoyavorovsky City Council, since the company did not pay the rent and did not begin construction of the power plant.

According to YouControl, the Sky Energy Ukraine company is part of a group of Lviv businessmen Orest and Ruslan Pechenko. Orest Pechenko was twice elected as a deputy of the Lviv City Council in 2010 and 2020, and has been a member of the executive committee of the City Council since 2017.

Kozitsky's fate

If we talk about Zinovy ​​Kozitsky, the father of the current head of LOVA, then in the ranking of tenants of plots for green energy he is only in sixth place. Since 2018, LOVA has transferred 20 plots with a total area of ​​8.3 hectares to its companies. Orders for 18 of these 20 sites were already issued during the chairmanship of his son Maxim Kozitsky. However, it is worth noting that this was a continuation of previous lease agreements - earlier in 2016, the same areas for the construction of the Oriv wind farm were allocated by LOVA under the leadership of Oleg Sinyutka.

Please note that obtaining land is a long process. If the desired site has not yet been formed and does not have a cadastral number, the company must first apply to the regional administration for permission to develop the allotment project, draw up land management documentation and register it with the State Geocadastre, and only then ask for a lease.

We assumed that after Maxim Kozitsky assumed the position of chairman of LOVA in February 2020, his father’s companies could have experienced a surge in obtaining permits for the development of projects; they simply had not yet had time to complete the remaining documents. But this hypothesis was not confirmed. Over the past five years, Zinovy ​​Kozitsky has received only two such permits: one from Sinyutka, one signed by his son. The leaders in terms of the number of permits for the development of land allocation projects were again the Dubnevich brothers.

Subsoil users

If we talk about mining, then this market in the Lviv region is divided among completely different players. The largest among them is the state - over the past five years, LOVA has transferred to the State Enterprise Zarechnaya Mine and PJSC Ukrnafta for lease or permanent use of almost 41 hectares of land.

It should be noted that at the time of signing the lease agreement, Ukrnafta was only semi-state - the second largest block of shares was owned by oligarch Igor Kolomoisky. However, at the end of 2022, the National Securities Commission forced the transfer of private shares to the Ministry of Defense.

The next leader in terms of leased area is Stryisky Gravel Crushing and Screening Plant LLC. In 2019, the company received a lease of more than 28 hectares for the development of a sand and gravel deposit. At that time, it belonged to ex-deputies of the Stryisky and Gorodok district councils Roman Gladiy and Emelyan Dunas. However, last summer it was rewritten to Vladimir Liseiko and Zoryana Naumenko.

The top three leaders in the rating of Girprom LLC are completed by Mikhail Blonsky and Igor Turchinyak. This company leases 7.7 hectares of land for sand mining in the Zhovkovsky district.

“The Horizons drilling company of Zinovy ​​Kozitsky was only in fourth place. But it is worth noting that after Maxim Kozitsky headed the Lviv OVA, things went better for the company - after all, it rented both plots with a total area of ​​7.4 hectares under his leadership.

LOVA transferred the first 2.4 hectares for the placement and operation of buildings related to the use of subsoil to Horizons in 2021. Another 5 hectares in the neighborhood, which LOVA decided to remain silent about in response to a request, were transferred in 2023. The corresponding orders were signed by the first deputy chairman of LOVA Andrei Godik.