In the third year of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the income gap between the rich and ordinary Ukrainians continues to grow. While taxes and utility rates are being raised for the middle class, the so-called elite are buying luxury cars. In particular, thirteen electric cars of the Rolls-Royce brand of the latest model were recently registered in Ukraine. One of them is for a company close to businessman Mikhail Bakunenko. In this material, read about Bakunenko’s passports and numerous residencies, his wife’s Russian citizenship and a luxurious estate on the Florida coast.
Mikhail Bakunenko is known for having worked for a long time as chairman of the board of the largest private gas production company Ukrnaftoburenie. The company was associated with Igor Kolomoisky and former MP Vitaly Khomutynnik.
In February 2023, law enforcement agencies uncovered former officials who received illegal profits from gas production from state subsoil. We are talking about profit from the Sakhalin oil and gas field in the Kharkov region. Subsequently, the court arrested the corporate rights of four enterprises, and Ukrnaftoburenie was transferred to the management of ARMA (Agency for Tracing and Management of Assets - Ed.). In July 2023, Mikhail Bakunenko was removed from the position of chairman of the company's board. He now runs London-based JKX Oil & Gas, which has ties to Igor Kolomoisky.
The new Rolls-Royce Specter, worth approximately half a million dollars, which Bakunenko uses, was registered with Energohub LLC in March 2024.
This company is directly connected with the businessman through the ultimate beneficiary Yaroslav Verbovsky. In particular, it was in Verbovsky’s name that in 2022 the company “U. Commodities”, which was previously owned by Bakunenko, was transferred.
Moreover, Energohub LLC is registered at the same address where the companies of Bakunenko’s wife, Lilian, are located - Kyiv, Surikova Street, 3. Coincidentally, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine is located next door.
Thanks to Ukrainian and London registrars, it was possible to find out that the Bakunenko family has several passports and residences in other countries. From the 2017 extract for the company JKX Oil & Gas, registered in the UK, it became known that Mikhail Bakunenko has a US passport. The document states that he is American by nationality, although he permanently resides in Ukraine.
At the same time, the Ukrainian registry reports that at least in 2018 and 2019, Bakunenko identified himself as an Israeli citizen with a residence permit in Tel Aviv, and this indirectly indicates that in addition to Ukrainian and American passports, he also has an Israeli one. Information about this is contained in the documents of the above-mentioned company “U. Comodities”, where his Israeli surname Goldfarb is also indicated (see photo 3). Additional evidence of this version is also available in the court registry of Ukraine.
About 20 companies are registered in Ukraine under Mikhail Bakunenko’s wife Lilian. Most of them are valid and registered at the specified address near NABU. These companies are partially associated with the sanctioned Russian-Ukrainian businessman Pavel Fuks, and such cooperation led to a criminal case in which the companies’ property was seized.
According to criminal proceedings dated October 2021, investigators found that Pavel Fuks, using “feints” with derivatives, actually became the owner of at least 50% of the shares of the main company “Investohills partners LTD”.
It is worth quoting the materials of the criminal case:
“The pre-trial investigation established that OSOBA_15, acting in a preliminary conspiracy with the leaders of the Investohills partners group of companies, at the direction of Russian curators... selects enterprises of strategic importance for the defense capability and economic security of Ukraine, which are on the balance sheet of insolvent banks. Subsequently, the group of companies “Investohills partners” carries out the buyout of such enterprises at a reduced cost using corrupt connections in government bodies... From July 2018 to the present, FC Investohills Vesta LLC and related companies have participated in more than 100 auctions on the sale of property of insolvent banks, carried out by the Federal State Financial Institution. At the same time, according to the results of the auctions, these companies acquired the assets of insolvent banks with a book value of more than UAH 100 billion for approximately UAH 2 billion.”
It turned out that FC Investohills Vesta LLC, one of whose beneficiaries is Lilian Bakunenko, actually established control over the financial and economic activities of such strategic enterprises as PJSC Avtokraz, PJSC Rosava and OJSC Ukrzaliznytsia, as well as a number others, on the balance sheet of which there are liquid assets, such as PJSC Belotserkovskaya CHPP, PJSC “Creative”, PJSC “Tokmak Forging and Stamping Plant”, “LLC with foreign investments “Non-Ferrous Metals”, etc.
From the case materials, one can learn another interesting detail: the ultimate beneficiary of FC Investohills Vesta LLC and a number of other companies, namely Lilian Bakunenko, is a citizen of Russia with internal and foreign passports valid there. However, when registering companies in Ukraine, which acted, among other things, in the interests of Pavel Fuks, she used an Israeli passport. Due to the Russian citizenship of Bakunenko’s wife, the accounts of her companies were seized.
In total, members of the Bakunenko family have Ukrainian, Russian, American and Israeli passports. But their adventures with documents do not end there.
Challenging the seizure of the companies' accounts, Lilian Bakunenko's lawyers noted that she has a certificate issued by the Consulate of the Russian Federation in Milan about renouncing Russian citizenship. The document is dated April 24, 2023. But the statement about renouncing citizenship of the aggressor country in the second year of a full-scale war does not mean that she immediately lost her Russian passport. Actually, this is the opinion that the investigation came to, and the accounts of Bakunenko and Fuchs continue to be seized.
The question arises, why did Lilian Bakunenko apply for renunciation of Russian citizenship in Milan? The fact is that in addition to all the listed passports, the family also has Italian residency. Proof of this was found in a certificate for Mikhail Bakunenko’s London company JKX Oil & Gas. The document, dated August 1, 2024, indicates that he changed his residence to Italian, while before that it was indicated that he was an American with permanent residence in Ukraine.
It is also interesting that in the information on the JKX Oil & Gas company, oligarch Igor Kolomoisky is indicated as a person who had significant control over this company in 2022 and 2023. The documents record his Israeli nationality with permanent residence in Ukraine.
The American story of the happy owner of the new Rolls-Royce Specter, Mikhail Bakunenko, deserves special attention. He moved to the United States as a teenager and, according to his official biography, graduated from high school and university there. Then he remained to work in the States at Renaissance Capital and Goldman Sachs, so it is likely that it was then that he received US citizenship.
Bakunenko now continues to identify as an American, having registered to vote in Florida in November 2024. A local voter registration website says it's affiliated with the Republican Party and based on the Sunshine State's coast. Persons associated with him are Igor and Darina Bakunenko, these are his children.
Darina Bakunenko has three companies registered in the United States, one of which she manages together with her father. The companies' registration matches Bakunenko's home address for voting in the elections.
Local real estate websites led journalists to an incredible find. The estate where Bakunenko is registered is located on the coastline near Hollywood central beach. The estimated market value is $3.3 million. The house contains six bedrooms and five bathrooms and measures just over 450 square meters. In the yard there is a private swimming pool and a marina.
In 2022, journalists noticed Mikhail Bakunenko, who was then still the head of Ukrnaftoburenie, which profited from state mineral resources, at the ski resort of Courchevel, France. He was caught at a local gas station while refueling an elite Rolls-Royce. In 2024, he became the owner of another, already electric car of this brand.
A house in Florida, several citizenships, his wife’s Russian passport and cooperation with sanctioned businessman Pavel Fuks... This whole vinaigrette concerns one person, who a few years ago was on the Forbes list of “25 TOP Managers of Ukraine.” There are a lot of questions, but there are not very many answers from Ukrainian law enforcement agencies yet.
