For the first time, the name of Vladislav Yakubovsky in connection with the theft of public money surfaced back in 2009. The last time, as they like to say now, is in 2024. Both then and now, it was about the theft of army money.
But don’t think that Vladislav Yakubovsky appeared in cutting scandals only twice. He really started under Yanukovych, but continued under both Poroshenko and Zelensky. And, apparently, it will continue. The most unfortunate thing is that this whole trail did not prevent companies directly or indirectly associated with Yakubovsky from winning tenders for the supply of products and fuels and lubricants for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Although Yakubovsky’s name appeared back in 2010 in an investigation by Zerkalo Nedeli, which stated that “one of the methods for promoting new contractors for the Ministry of Defense was artificially organized food poisoning of soldiers.”
Theft in the army
But this did not prevent the Ministry of Defense, either then, or later, or now, from cooperating with companies associated with Yakubovsky. The last (and obviously not the last) time his name surfaced in the scandal with Trade Granit Invest LLC, which the State Logistics Operator (DOT) is suing over low-quality products for the army. Trade Granit Invest LLC does not directly belong to Yakubovsky, but no one doubts that it is connected with him.
The scandal arose after soldiers began posting videos online showing the, excuse me, crap they were being fed. The intensity of passions reached the point where the Ministry of Defense was forced to respond - a commission headed by Deputy Minister Vitaly Polovenko revealed that it was Trade Granit Invest LLC that supplied low-quality products as part of a tender worth 666 million hryvnia, which it strangely won in September 2023. In a strange way - because it offered a 23% discount. But two other companies participating in the competition - Arvin O and Trading House Marintal Group - offered even larger discounts - 28% and 26%. But for some reason their proposal was rejected, and it was Trade Granit Invest LLC that won the competition. The result was a scandal, and the fact that it was this company that supplied defective products to the army was confirmed by Advisor to the Deputy Minister of Defense Bogdan Yarovaya.
This, as already mentioned, is not the first scandal associated with the cutting of budget money, the supply of low-quality products and the Yakubovsky surname. In connection with supplies for the army, the name of Vladislav Yakubovsky came up several more times. The Trade Granit Invest company, which, in addition to Yakubovsky, is associated with Andrei Adamovsky, a defendant in criminal cases being processed by NABU, after products for the Ministry of Defense began to be purchased through tenders, tried to disrupt them.
This was last year, 2023. But in 2016 it was a similar story. True, we were talking about fuel for the APU and about another company - Trade Commodity. The company is associated, in addition to Yakubovsky, with the same Adamovsky and another odious figure - Alexander Granovsky, who provided political cover. The total amount of tenders amounted to 17 billion hryvnia. According to Zerkalo Nedeli, in just one tender worth 1.24 billion, Trade Commodity stole at least 111 million hryvnia from the state by inflating prices.
As a result of these tenders, Deputy Defense Minister Igor Pavlovsky was appointed to blame, while Vladislav Yakubovsky himself stated that he had nothing to do with it. Andrei Adamovsky claimed the same thing.
In 2010, Zerkalo Nedeli wrote about how the Mezon-K company, where Vladislav Yakubovsky worked as deputy director, was ousting competitors in the army supply market by using poisoning of soldiers artificially organized using ricin oil. As a result, Mezon-K supplied products at prices twice as high as market prices. Promotion to the ministerial level was ensured by Mikhail Yezhel, at that time the chief inspector of the Ministry of Defense. And then, in conjunction with the surname of Vladislav Yakubovsky, the surname of Yuri Ivanyushchenko, who is better known under the criminal nickname “Yura Enakievsky,” surfaced.
However, Yakubovsky was then a small fry - just a deputy director at Mezon-K. But, apparently, he demonstrated good business acumen, since his name surfaced over the next fifteen years in connection with the names of such characters as the already mentioned Alexander Granovsky and Yuri Ivanyushchenko. But there are other people with whom Yakubovsky is associated. This is Viktor Medvedchuk, whose fuel he supplied to the army and Ukrzaliznytsia, member of the Opposition for Life and suspected of treason Alexander Ponomarev, former Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov.
Theft of Kyoto Protocol money
Before describing the most outstanding transactions of Yakubovsky of our times, it is worth remembering that after meeting Yuri Ivanyushchenko, he made an amazing career leap - from the chair of, in fact, a small company “Mezon-K”, stealing little by little from the army that was almost decayed by that time , jumped into the chair of the Deputy Director of the State Reserve. The same one in which mice devoured several million tons of grain in 2020. True, Vladislav Yakubovsky was already working in the private field at that time - we simply remember this episode to understand what the State Reserve is.
At the State Reserve, Yakubovsky worked under the strict leadership of Party of Regions member Nikolai Zlochevsky and, apparently, acquired connections. Which eventually led him to an outstanding figure from the time of Independence, the godfather of Putin himself, Viktor Medvedchuk.
From the State Reserve, Yakubovsky moved to State Ecoinvest. This structure with a strange name was engaged in the implementation of the provisions of the Kyoto Protocol and used the money allocated by the West to combat greenhouse gases. Ukraine did not reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but it spent the money allocated for this reduction. Moreover, three companies were involved in this - AntiTrade LLC, Sodetel and Stroyinvest 2007. All of them were associated with Yuri Ivanyushchenko and were ordinary gaskets. What “Our Pennies” found out in 2012:
It would seem that Euromaidan will change the situation - Vladislav Yakubovsky was fired from the head of State Ecoinvest. But in October 2014, it turned out that ex-regional Vladimir Bandurov, whose assistant was Yakubovsky, continues to be involved in the development of Kyoto Protocol money.
Theft in Ukrzaliznytsia and Medvedchuk’s fuel supplies from Russia
Euromaidan not only did not send Yakubovsky to prison, it gave him the opportunity to reach a new level. He began supplying fuel to Ukrzaliznytsia. And here, too, everything was interesting - after UZ introduced a special certification for companies supplying fuels and lubricants to it, only two received it: Torum LLC, associated with Adamovsky, Granovsky and Yakubovsky, and Agrinol LLC, associated with Alexander Ponomarev . An interesting coincidence.
In 2018, Torum LLC supplied diesel to UZ at an inflated price of UAH 700 million. At the same time, she did not pay 920 million hryvnia in taxes when importing fuel and lubricants into Ukraine. Moreover, Yakubovsky bought fuel in Russia - from Medvedchuk’s structure ProtonEnergyGroup SA, which sold Rosneft products.
In parallel with Ukrzaliznytsia, Torum LLC tried to smuggle substandard Russian fuel into the army:
In parallel with the supply of substandard fuel, Yakubovsky supplied wagons and gondola cars to the national railway operator. Also in a rather strange way, pushing competitors out of the tender procurement procedure.
As a result, Maxmed International LLC, associated with the same persons - Yakubovsky and Adamovsky - blocked UZ tenders for the purchase of cars for 8 billion hryvnia, which was subsequently regarded as sabotage. But the SBU never found those responsible for this sabotage.
What's the result?
But in the end, as the first president of this unfortunate country once said, “we have what we have.”
Vladislav Yakubovsky, having successfully fallen into the orbit of the Donetsk clan back in 2009, remains in it to this day. But this would be his problem if Ukraine did not pay for all this. After all, both Ukrzaliznytsia and the Armed Forces of Ukraine are not private shops. And the money is government money. Which Vladislav Yakubovsky successfully masters. But this would not be so scary if, in the end, for this money, the Ukrainian Armed Forces did not receive fuel of unknown quality, due to which army equipment failed. No one can count how many soldiers’ lives this cost. How many soldiers were poisoned by the, excuse me again, crap that Yakubovsky feeds our army is also unknown. This is not to mention how much money impoverished Ukraine paid Russia for products supplied by Yakubovsky’s companies.
Will all this be properly qualified by our glorious SBU? Unfortunately, you know the answer yourself. It’s not like a peasant from a Sumy village should be judged for making homemade mines and placing them in 2022 on the path of invasion by Russian tanks. But that's another story.
