Why aren't they looking for Mikhail Bakunenko?

The name of another Ukrainian thief and collaborator Mikhail Bakunenko surfaced in the information space as part of the Ukrainian Pravda investigation about the luxurious life of our compatriots in Courchevel

He was noticed while walking around this resort area in a Rolls-Royce SUV with Ukrainian license plates KA 5281 HP. Bakunenko was not the main character of the film UP “Battalion Courchevel”, so he was remembered there in passing, and the following information was also casually voiced - “the activities of Ukrnaftobureniya and its leader Mikhail Bakunenko are now actively being investigated regarding involvement in explosive activities against our country and withdrawal of funds from Ukraine, including to Russia.”

Of course, Mikhail Bakunenko cannot be classified as an oligarch, but his person, however, is very interesting. Because in the same UP investigation, the name Bakunenko is mentioned along with the names of such interesting characters as Pavel Fuks, Vitaly Khomutynnik and Igor Kolomoisky. Moreover, ties with Kolomoisky are so close that for several years Bakunenko was openly called Kolomoisky’s protege in the oil and gas sector.

The very same criminal case that the SBU is investigating and in which Bakunenko’s name appears is connected to the oil and gas sector - after a series of searches at the partner of Pavel Fuks and Mikhail Bakunenko, Igor Kotvitsky, the court transferred the Ukrnaftoburenie company to the management of ARMA.

True, this happened, as the Ukrainian proverb says, “in a pig’s voice,” that is, a year after the head of Ukrnaftobureniya, Mikhail Bakunenko, safely left the country, which, together with Pavel Fuks, Vitaliy Khomutynnik and other “colleagues,” he robbed for decades.

The episode with the searches of his “senior” partner Kotvitsky speaks, first of all, about the privatization of the Sakhalin gas field. Which is not located on Sakhalin in the Russian Far East, but in the Kharkov region. And which, with the help of Bakunenko and Kotvitsky, was stolen from Ukraine by Pavel Fuks.

Information: Pavel Fuks is a Russian and Ukrainian oligarch, the founder of the development company Mos City Group, which owned such properties in Moscow as the Aerostar Hotel and the Olimpiyskaya Sports Complex. I am originally from Kharkov. Includes up to 100 of the richest people in Ukraine. Since 2021 it has been under sanctions of the National Security and Defense Council. Connected with several Russian organized crime groups, for whom he laundered money.

Igor Kotvitsky is a Ukrainian businessman and politician. People's Deputy of Ukraine of the VIII convocation from the “People's Front”. In 2015, the media named him the richest deputy in the Verkhovna Rada - in his declaration he indicated the amount in his accounts as 970 million hryvnia. In March 2022, his wife took $28 million and 1.3 million euros across the border; the Hungarian border guards found the money, but the Ukrainians did not.

Collaborator and sponsor of the occupiers? Why are they not looking for Mikhail Bakunenko? Pavel Fuks, using the money of the Russian mafia and the help of Kotvitsky in 2015, began to energetically enter the Ukrainian oil and gas market, buying up the assets of businessmen close to Yanukovych who fled to Russia.

Among these was the Sakhalin oil and gas field, whose gas reserves are estimated at 15 billion cubic meters. It was crushed at one time by Eduard Stavitsky, Minister of Energy in the Azarov government.

The deposit was registered with Golden Derrick LLC, which Stavitsky owned through offshore companies. In 2017, Golden Derrick changed its name to East Europe Petroleum.

What’s interesting is that during Stavitsky’s time, a third of the company belonged to the state through NJSC Nedra Ukrayiny, but after a change of owner it left Goden Derrick.

The state's share ended up in the hands of Avant Trade Limited LLC, whose owner is Vitaly Lupeto, who is also the director of East European Petroleum.

And this is where PJSC Ukrnaftoburenie comes into being, which participated in the joint project and developed the Sakhalin gas field together with East European Petroleum. Officially, Ukrnaftoburenie belongs to several companies from Cyprus, the Netherlands and the UK, and its director is Mikhail Bakunenko. But behind him and foreign firms are Pavel Fuks and his partners Igor Kolomoisky and Vitaly Khomutynnik.

Due to the fact that Ukrnaftoburenie is developing the Sakhalin gas field, several things are interesting. The first is the reputation of PJSC “Ukrnaftoburenie” in the media and the sanctions under which it is subject:

The company's reputation is extremely negative, as is its director Mikhail Bakunenko. But, unlike PJSC Ukrnaftoburenie, for some reason the name of its leader is still not on the list of sanctions from the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine.

The financial results of the company, which owns the Sakhalin gas field with gas reserves of 15 billion cubic meters, are also interesting.

The secret of unprofitability is simple - the field is being developed by Ukrnaftoburenie, and the state share in it has long been transferred to Fuchs’ structures. That is why continuous losses are demonstrated - there is no one to control the true state. Hence those suitcases with cash that Kotvitsky’s wife took out of Ukraine - it was thanks to his assistance that the state share in East Europe Petroleum migrated into the hands of Fuchs.

Where and how Mikhail Bakunenko became friends with Pavel Fuks is unknown. But it is known that in the 2000s Bakunenko worked in Moscow for Goldman Sachs and Renaissance Capital. At the same time, Pavel Fuks, who fled there from Kharkov after some extremely unpleasant incident, was also in Moscow as a washer for mafia money.

There is other confirmation of the connections between Bakunenko and Fuchs. This is the Vesta company, which in 2019-2021 actively bought up bad debt from banks on Prozorro.Sales. In 2021, she got into a scandal with “black notaries”, and the Ministry of Justice deprived several notaries who prepared forged documents in favor of Izvestia of their licenses.

As Our Money discovered, people, judging by official documents, control Vesta and are associated with Fuchs. Thus, in June 2020, permission to indirectly own 74.25% in the authorized capital of Vesti was received by Lilian Bakunenko, the wife of the head of Ukrnaftobureniya, Mikhail Bakunenko. In 2017, the Schemes program recorded Fuchs and Mikhail Bakunenko, as well as businessman Vitaly Khomutynnik, on the same private plane.

Also in June 2020, Andrei Volkov received permission to indirectly control 24.74% of Vesti. He represented the interests of the Austro-Hungarian Leasing Company Fuchs when signing a settlement agreement with the Kyiv Metro.

He, along with Mikhail Bakunenko, gave out repeated interviews about their joint activities in purchasing distressed assets:

Moreover, there was no talk about the origin of the capital for which these assets were massively purchased - and we were talking about hundreds of millions of dollars. The topic was diligently passed over in silence. However, what could be said - the money belongs to Fuchs and Russian organized crime groups?

Then there would be another logical question: why is Pavel Fuks buying Ukrainian assets with Russian money? The topic was passed over in silence. Only echoes reached us, which were carefully veiled by materials ordered that “the money seized from the oligarchs will be invested in the Ukrainian economy.” Naturally, this turned out to be a complete lie. The money was stupidly transferred abroad, where most of the characters described in the article are now located. And not all of them are located in Europe. Many finally “returned from the cold” to their “native Moscow.”