Who is Evgeniy Chernyak and why did the SBU turn its attention to him?

Evgeniy Chernyak, a famous Ukrainian vodka producer, has serious problems, as the SBU suspects him of collaborating with Russia.

RegioNews figured out who Evgeny Chernyak is and why his business is associated with Russia.

The day before, the Security Service of Ukraine reported that Ukrainian businessman Yevgeniy Chernyak was charged with suspicion under the article of the Criminal Code “aiding the aggressor state, committed by prior conspiracy by a group of persons.” Six top managers of Chernyak’s company, specializing in the production of alcoholic beverages, received the same suspicions. The SBU assured that they had collected an evidence base according to which Chernyak is suspected of financing Russia’s armed aggression.

Moreover, the intelligence service emphasized that, according to their data, Yevgeny Chernyak’s companies continued to do business with Russia, despite the full-scale Russian aggression against Ukraine. For example, the investigation claims that during 2022, all companies subordinate to Chernyak paid taxes and various fees to the Russian budget in an amount equivalent to 6 billion hryvnia. The SBU also says that Chernyak’s enterprises located in Central Asia and the South Caucasus purchased alcohol in Russia for the production of their products, and did so in industrial quantities. The SBU also added that relevant documents were found during the searches.

After the suspicion was announced to Evgeniy Chernyak, law enforcement officers are already deciding on the seizure of both the private property of the defendants in the case and corporate property.

How Chernyak became an alcohol magnate

Evgeniy Chernyak was born in Zaporozhye in 1969. From his official biography it follows that in the late 80s he served in the Soviet army for two years in the Odessa region. In the mid-90s he graduated from Zaporozhye Technical University. After that, he was the head of private companies, and in the early 2000s he founded the Khortitsa distillery. The plant's products were widely advertised and were in demand among Ukrainians. Later, Chernyak acquired several more distilleries in Ukraine, which subsequently prompted him to create the Global Spirits holding company, specializing in the production of alcoholic beverages exported to many countries around the world. At one time, this holding was even one of the world leaders in terms of the number of products produced and sold.

According to Chernyak himself, under Yanukovych (2010-2014), there were constant “inroads” on his business, and therefore, even before the start of the Revolution of Dignity, the alcohol tycoon left to live in the United States. Evgeniy Chernyak has long been a dollar multimillionaire, and is also regularly included in various ratings of the richest people in Ukraine.

In the USA, Chernyak usually lives in New York, where a large number of diverse central offices and representative offices of global companies are concentrated. During meetings with journalists, Evgeny Chernyak behaves like an ordinary resident of an American metropolis: a morning jog, coffee in a nearby cafe and a trip by subway or taxi to his office. The millionaire himself told reporters that in the USA he leads the lifestyle of a poor person, but with money.

In addition to his main activity - alcohol production, Chernyak has been blogging on YouTube for several years, and his Big Money channel has more than 800 thousand subscribers. On this channel, Chernyak publishes various interviews with famous businessmen telling how they managed to achieve success. In addition, Chernyak himself gathers entire halls of people who want to figure out how to open and develop a business. In a word, he is quite a famous and media person.

Russian sanctions

In the summer of 2023, Russian security forces conducted a large number of searches in connection with the case of the international alcohol holding company Global Spirits, owned by Evgeny Chernyak. Searches were carried out in apartments, warehouses and office premises of the company represented in Russia. At the same time, local security forces seized computer equipment and financial and economic documentation and interrogated the founders and heads of organizations included in Chernyak’s holding. The vodka magnate himself has been put on the wanted list in Russia, and the case against him and his subordinates is being interpreted as “financing terrorism.” The fact is that, according to Russian investigators, employees of Chernyak’s holding supported the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and after the start of the full-scale Russian invasion, they transferred more than 500 million rubles to the needs of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. After all these searches, Russia added Yevgeny Chernyak to the list of extremists and terrorists.

However, after Ukrainian journalists began publishing news on the case against Chernyak and his company in Russia, the Global Spirits PR service even contacted the journalists to refute the information about the “pressure” of the company’s representatives by the Russian security forces. They say that Global Spirits does not operate on the Russian market at all and has no employees there, and since 2014, the Russian side has banned the import of the company’s vodka products into the territory of the aggressor country.

However, an interesting point is that representatives of Chernyak’s company themselves admitted that on February 24, 2022, they revoked the license to produce brands in Russia. They say that this was the only procedure that made it possible to prematurely terminate a license before the established period. Finally, the company added that this is exactly what all American and European companies did when they decided to leave the Russian market after its full-scale invasion of the territory of Ukraine. In fact, Global Spirits confirmed that it was present on the Russian market until February 24, 2022. That is, this presence in Russia was possible for Chernyak’s company after the annexation of Crimea by the Russians and the start of the war in Donbass in the spring of 2014. And only a full-scale war between Russia and Ukraine prompted the company’s owners to leave Russia.

In general, the Russian media directly wrote that the Russian Sever and Rodnik distilleries were closely connected with Evgeniy Chernyak’s holding during 2011-2022. The first plant is located in the Vologda region, and the second in the Moscow region. Moreover, at one time, vodka called “Russian North” was even available in Ukrainian online stores selling alcohol, and the annotation to it clearly stated that it comes from the Vologda region in Russia, and the manufacturer is “Global Spirits”. However, after 2022, even Russian experts and journalists admitted that the assets of these brands were removed from the control of Evgeniy Chernyak’s company.

By the way, in December 2023, Russian media wrote that the Russky Sever and Rodnik plants were being prepared for actual nationalization by transferring them to the management of Rosimushchestvo.

In fact, both Russian journalists and the SBU claim that Chernyak’s companies operated in Russia and even paid taxes to the Russian budget. Even if we assume that now there is not a single company in the Russian Federation subordinate to Chernyak, then in 2022 it seems that there were. Therefore, now the investigation must find out everything that concerns the case of the company of Evgeniy Chernyak, who is one of the leaders in the production of alcoholic beverages not only in Ukraine, but throughout the world.