Pro-Russian businessman Firtash and agrarian Vasily Astion may be behind the “scheme” of selling the Respublika shopping center at a three times lower price
Own forest, cinema, amusement park and operated thousands of shops. And also scams, scandals, conspiracies and probable crime. And all this is about the capital's Respublika shopping center, which took almost 10 years to build and was sold at least three times cheaper than its real cost. Who can stand behind a large-scale “scheme” worth billions of hryvnias?
And what role did the pro-Russian oligarch Firtash, the ex-regional activist Khomutynnik and his business partner Astion play in the story of “Republic”?
What records marked the construction of the Respublika shopping center in Kyiv?
Construction of this giant shopping and entertainment center began back in 2012. The construction of the Republic was financed mainly through loans from Nadra Bank. The investor was the Megapoliszhilstroy company. She is also linked to pro-Russian oligarch Dmitry Firtash.
According to the Youcontrol resource, its beneficiary is the offshore Cypriot company Berlinotto Limited. And its secretary and director, as People’s Deputy Sergei Leshchenko wrote in 2016, along with several other Cypriots appears in dozens of companies of Firtash and the ex-head of the Presidential Administration during the Yanukovych era, Sergei Levochkin.
All work actually stopped in 2015, when Nadra Bank went bankrupt and Megapoliszhilstroy stopped fulfilling its construction obligations. In the end, the bank transferred all its rights to Respublika to the NBU, which became the final mortgagee of the shopping center.
They tried to sell the notorious shopping center as many as 15 times. At the same time, the cost steadily decreased: as a result, instead of two and a half billion hryvnia, only 777 million hryvnia were paid for the gigantic structure. That is three times less. And this agreement raised many questions, in particular from the Antimonopoly Committee, which came to the conclusion: the behavior of the three bidders - the companies Soltex Capital, Fingrup Factor and Tolkfin - is the result of a conspiracy.
The AMCU collected the following evidence:
- the companies had other common employees;
- bidders provided each other with financial assistance;
- close communication between auction participants during its preparation, in particular electronic correspondence between Fingroup Factor and Tolkfin;
- companies using the same means of communication; coordinated behavior of companies during the trading itself.
According to the AMCU, these facts unconditionally indicate the existence of preliminary agreements between these companies to hold an auction for the sale of the loan claim, the security of which is the Respublika shopping center. In fact, we are talking about collusion.
In addition, in 2020, it became known that the National Police was investigating a possible conspiracy between officials of the National Bank, PJSC CB Nadra, JSB Clearing House, DV Invest Real Estate LLC, Megapoliszhilstroy LLC and Soltex Capital LLC "at auction.
Thus, it turns out that thanks to this “equipment” for the sale of the shopping center, the state lost more than a billion hryvnia. At the same time, the object itself actually remained in the hands of the former owners, the journalist notes.
How did this “scheme” work and what does Soltex Capital have to do with it?
According to Youcontrol, the company began operations in September 2018. Engaged in the provision of financial services. Authorized capital – 3.1 million hryvnia. The authorized signatory of Soltex Capital is Vasily Astion. By the way, he is also the ultimate beneficiary of Fingroup Factor and Tolkfin, that is, the other two companies that allegedly competed at the auction for Respublika.
Interestingly, as noted online, Astion became a signatory of Soltex Capital on February 5, the day of the auction for the Republic.
The management company of this shopping center is JSC Diligence, where the final beneficiary, through the offshore company Dresdenco Ltd, is Dmitry Firtash, as well as a group of companies from ex-regional and Astion’s long-time business partner Vitaly Khomutynnik.
“Having read all the articles on the topic of resale of the Respublika shopping center, I can note one fact: almost every media outlet believes that the customer of the case from the Respublika shopping center could have been the oligarch and ex-owner of Nadra Bank Dmitry Firtash. He started construction and financed it,” comments Olga Levitskaya.
What are businessmen Firtash, Fuchs, Khomutynnik and Astion known for, and what unites them all?
Pavel Fuks – 67th place in the list of the hundred richest Ukrainians in 2021
Kharkov-born businessman Fuchs left Ukraine after the start of the war. “I had to ensure the safety of three children,” Fuchs said in a commentary to the UP. The Schemes project, citing Al Jazeera, claims that Fuchs has common business interests with Andrei Portnov’s family in Moscow. He allegedly owns part of 2000 sq. m of the Mosfilmovsky business center. Fuchs had a business in Russia for many years, but is a Ukrainian entrepreneur, his press service explained. Fuchs has not owned most companies in Russia since 2015. Until 2022, he owned a 99.6% stake in CJSC Capital-Stroy, according to data from the Russian analytical system SPARK-Interfax.
Vitaliy Khomutynnik – 15th place in the top twenty richest Ukrainians in 2022.
Due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Khomutynnik and his wife, according to the UP, left the country. In the fall, journalists filmed him driving a Bentley Continental at Cap Ferrat in France. Later, the yacht Apostrophe, worth $20 million, owned by Khomutinnik, headed for the Greek islands. Khomutynnik’s main asset is 47% of the gas production company Ukrneftebureniya, which he owns together with Igor Kolomoisky and Pavel Fuks. In Ukraine, Khomutynnik still has the Golf Federation, which he has headed since 2019, the Cascade-Agro company worth $45 million, shares in at least two shopping centers “Respublika” and “Vyrlitsa” (under construction) and 7% of the shares of Kernel.
Dmitry Firtash – 25th place in the list of the hundred richest Ukrainians in 2021.
In March, he lost another extradition trial to the United States, where Firtash faces criminal proceedings on suspicion of corruption. Firtash still remains in Vienna under recognizance not to leave and a bail of €125 million. In the spring, 20 regional gas companies of the RGK were transferred to the management of Naftogaz of Ukraine. The reason for the alienation is almost 1.5 billion UAH. non-payment for the use of state gas networks. However, Neftegaz has still not been able to change the management of these companies. Probably, starting next year, Firtash’s regional gas companies will be managed by the state-owned Gas Distribution Network Operator of Ukraine, says former head of Naftogaz Yuriy Vitrenko.
But our fourth character, Vasily Astion, is not on the pages of Forbes, unlike his friends.
And in general there is little open information about him on the Internet. The only recent news is an article from 2022 about how the defendant businessman from Dnepr Astion cannot pay off his multimillion-dollar debts: Yuzhny Bank has already sued him, and other creditor banks are on the way.
Relations between the Dnipro Agro Group group of companies and creditor banks at the stage of negotiations moved into the stage of litigation. According to RBC-Ukraine, in January one of the largest banks, to which Dnipro Agro Group owed about UAH 150 million, failed - Odessa AB Yuzhny. From him, the group of companies of Astion and his father-in-law Mikhail Koshlyak, as debtors and guarantors, received a lawsuit in the Economic Court of the Dnepropetrovsk Region.
Online, Astion’s father-in-law Mikhail Koshlyak is called the “shadow master” of the Dnepropetrovsk region.
Almost everyone has heard about his business empire and agro-raiding, and many connections have appeared during Koshlyak’s “dominance” in the Dnepropetrovsk region for quite a long time.
According to the information and analytical platform YouControl, Vasily Astion, his brother Evgeny Astion, their father Nikolai Astion and Vasily’s father-in-law Mikhail Koshlyak are the key persons of the so-called Koshlyakov-Astion business group, whose interests are concentrated in the field of agriculture and real estate. In particular, the core of the group is Dnipro Agro Group, whose main activity is the production, storage and sale of grains and oilseeds. The land bank of Dnipro Agro Group is estimated at about 50 thousand hectares.
What is noteworthy is that the Koshlyakov-Astions have “their people” among outspoken collaborators.
Thus, Sergei Rybachok, who is the co-founder and director of Amalteya LLC, part of the Dnipro Agro Group, currently holds the position of first deputy Gauleiter of the occupied part of the Kherson region under the pseudonym Semyon Anatolyevich Ushinsky. Probably, Rybachok entered into voluntary cooperation with the pro-Russian administration of the region in order to avoid criminal prosecution after the liberation of Kherson from the occupiers.
Astion and his father-in-law Mikhail Koshlyak also faced criminal charges of extortion and death threats against other businessmen, but they were acquitted by the court. As Litsa previously wrote, Vasily Astion was accused of extortion and unlawful taking of enterprise property, but on September 28, the Zhovtnevy District Court of Dnepropetrovsk found Astion not guilty and acquitted him.
How does Mr. Astion get away with it? The question remains open.
According to information that became known to StopCor from its own insider sources, the soft attitude of justice towards the defendant may be due to a certain influence on the part of the Deputy Head of the Office of the President Andrei Smirnov, a longtime friend and exporter of Vasily Astion.
In the declaration for 2020, Smirnov indicated a loan received in 2019 for a total amount of UAH 9.8 million. Olga Astion is Vasily Astion’s mother.
Let us remind you that on January 12, the Shevchenkovsky District Court set a “penny” bail for the Dnieper agricultural businessman Astion, who is accused of tax evasion and numerous raider takeovers. Journalists suggested that Themis’s decision could have been helped by the businessman’s “authoritative” patrons. After all, the threads from Astion’s probable schemes stretch to a number of former and current politicians, and some of the traces lead to the aggressor country.
