Motorcade, security and SBU, apartment in an elite residential complex, systematic trips abroad during the big war. This is all about a man who first accidentally found himself in an influential circle, and then on the electoral lists of the Servant of the People party.
Now this man owns a Telegram channel with 270 thousand subscribers, the activities of which raise many questions. Journalists from hromadske spoke with deputies, former and current officials, and intelligence officers. These are not 2-3 sources, these are about two dozen people, familiar and unfamiliar to each other.
Of course, this is all indirect evidence of the de-anonymization of the owner of the Joker Telegram channel. But the quantity of this evidence, the variety and quality of the sources they consulted, leaves no doubt as to who is behind “The Joker.” And these sources were able to confirm their words in various ways. And so now the story is about 29-year-old Roman Aleksandrovich Kravets, co-author of the Telegram channel “Joker”, and now, after the elimination of former partners, its sole owner.
Foreign voyages
“Mobilization in Ukraine is disrupted by the TCC. No one touches fat fagots. They touch the hard workers. Why the hell does the TCC pack people into beads on the streets if they don’t want to fight? Why the fuck?” – this post was published in the Telegram channel “Joker” on May 25, 2024. This channel has 270 thousand subscribers, whitens the actions of the authorities and attacks business.
For example, he actively criticizes the management of the Uklon company, which allegedly travels abroad during a major war: “Listen, is Uklon a critical infrastructure? It turns out that Uklon management calmly leaves Ukraine during the war.”
The narratives of “Joker” may appeal to a certain part of citizens: mobilize the rich, leave the poor alone, and don’t travel abroad, especially if you are a politician or businessman. But Kravets himself writes these posts from a Lexus car worth 150 thousand dollars on the way to Saudi Arabia.
During the full-scale invasion, he traveled abroad five times. In total I was there for more than two months. I left Ukraine for the first time on October 22, 2023, and returned only a month later, on November 20. He crossed the border at the Krakovets checkpoint in a Mercedes-BenzS 550 registered to him. Kravets bought this car at the beginning of 2022 from the previous owner for about 50 thousand dollars.
Where I left the car and why - the question is: I returned back to Ukraine in another Mercedes-Benz S 250 CDI, registered to 67-year-old Lviv resident Ekaterina Lozinskaya.
But real travel abroad began only in 2024. On February 18, “Joker” leaves Ukraine in a rented, already third Mercedes-Benz S-Klasse, and 4 days later returns in a rented Mercedes-Benz V220. And this is already the fourth car.
On April 22, I again went abroad in the car of a Lviv pensioner. Return in a week in a rented Mercedes-Benz S-Klasse.
He leaves again on May 4, and returns 18 days later suddenly - in a Nissan Rogue. In June, “Joker” leaves again for a short time and returns two days later in a Mercedes-Maybach GLS 600. And this is already the sixth car that Roman Kravets uses only for foreign voyages.
According to the publication’s sources, which coincide with the dates from the State Border Guard Service’s extract, on May 18, “Joker” went to Saudi Arabia for the fight between Tyson Fury and Alexander Usik. There is no basis for leaving Ukraine in the extracts from the border guards’ database, and this may mean that either Roman Kravets is not registered with the military at the age of 29, or he left because someone really asked for it. A source in the SBU reported the following:
More and more money
Obviously, if Roman Kravets has problems, it’s definitely not money. Here is the price list for, let’s say, information services “Joker” indicates in his channel:
- Advertising – from $47,500;
- Stop (that is, stopping publications on a certain topic) – from $389,000;
- Removal of information – from $236,000.
Of course, these numbers may not correspond to reality. However, colleagues from Forbes, who were the first to de-anonymize “Joker,” reported that his main income comes from media attacks. The latest public story happened with the company Uklon. “Joker” mentioned the taxi service in his posts more than 320 times. The heroes of dozens of incriminating publications were also “Citrus”, “Stylus”, “Techno Hedgehog” and others.
But only Uklon brought the conflict into the public sphere. The company reported that the Joker asked them for 200 thousand dollars to stop the endless attacks, but they did not agree to these conditions.
“He can create problems together with the security forces,” this was the opinion expressed by Andrey Karpyuk, general director of the retailer Stylus, in a commentary to Forbes.
Security and motorcade
In 2024, Roman Kravets buys another car for 150 thousand dollars - a Lexus LX 600. According to our calculations, over the past two years, “Joker” has spent more than 8 million hryvnia on the purchase of cars alone.
The owner of the Telegram channel lives in an apartment of one hundred square meters in the elite Chicago residential complex. Apartments are rented for at least 2 thousand dollars a month. The former head of the OP Andrey Bogdan and the founder of the Saga Development company, developer Andrey Vavrysh have apartments in this residential complex.
We decided to watch Kravets: how he lives, who he meets, where he goes and what he drives. On May 1, we noticed a Lexus LX 600 registered to Roman Kravets driving into the parking lot of the Chicago residential complex. A Toyota Land Cruiser drives up to him - the cars form a motorcade.
The next day, Roman Kravets leaves the Chicago residential complex, accompanied by at least four security guards. Typically, officials or top secret service officials need this level of security. That is, those whose position involves a threat to life or health.
A source close to Roman Kravets, in a conversation with hromadske, claims that he explained the presence of security as a “gift from the Kid.” Therefore, hromadske sent inquiries to the SBU and UGO to find out whether they provided security to the owner of the Telegram channel, who is demanding money from the business.
But here’s an interesting coincidence: a week after hromadske journalists began surveillance, suspicious cars with men inside suddenly appeared under the Chicago residential complex. For hours they stood nearby and just looked at us. On the morning of May 8, one of these men approached our journalist, introduced himself as SBU officer Andrei and asked not to worry, because “we have our own work, and you have yours.”
Despite these nuances, we were able to record that from time to time “Joker” visits the “Parkovy” business center, where people’s deputies from “Servant of the People” often gather.
The President's office is closer than it seems
Advisor to the head of the OP Mikhail Podolyak stated that the Office of the President does not control Telegram channels. But we talked to several officials and asked what they generally know about the activities of “Joker”. Various people claim that Kravets communicates with the Office of the President. The following is a direct quote from one of the politicians:
“Roman Kravets is a scumbag not gifted with intelligence, who got his hands on quick unofficial money through custom-made materials, in which he was actively assisted and is being assisted by certain current and former politicians and intelligence officers. Each of them obviously has different motives. Some are banal - so as not to touch them, others are purely mercantile. After all, this is a nightmare for business with the obvious goal of creating media problems and helping to solve them... This devil definitely doesn’t act alone.
I can say with confidence that this idiot Kravets calls Arakhamia one of his closest friends. Several more governors. To understand those with whom this scarecrow communicates, he always takes screenshots of personal correspondence and simultaneously shows them to everyone to raise his personal weight. Which simply doesn't exist.
There is only a half-meter imbecile, who over time will either be shortened even more due to broken legs, or he will merge everyone with whom he communicates and communicated. And everyone who has posted and continues to post custom-made nonsense from him. From businessmen to employees of the Administration, even to the leadership of the Administration during the Yanukovych era. Although this is already happening.”
One of the former top officials, in a conversation with us, admitted that he maintained communication with Roman Kravets: “Joker wrote to me, I sometimes answered something, but only in general contexts.” “Joker” subsequently showed screenshots of correspondence with this official to third parties to increase his status in their eyes.
At the same time, press secretary of the Servant of the People faction Yulia Paliychuk, in a comment to hromadske regarding the likely friendship between the head of the Servant of the People faction David Arakhamia and Roman Kravets, stated:
“I don’t know what Roman Kravets can tell. I don't know him personally. And talk about some kind of close relationship with someone... He can say whatever he wants. But I do not have such information regarding the contacts of a person named “Roman Kravets” with my immediate management.”
Start of a career and a great future
Kravets's success story begins in 2015. Then, in the 205th constituency in Chernigov, there were two candidates for the parliamentary by-election - a representative of the Petro Poroshenko Solidarity Bloc party, Sergei Berezenko, and Gennady Korban, who was nominated from the UKROP party. Those elections were epic, with car blockades, clashes and distribution of food parcels.
It was then that Roman Kravets appeared in Korban’s entourage and began to help him with elections and information campaigns. I became quite close to him. Before the change of power in 2019, Kravets already had certain connections among officials. In particular, he developed a warm relationship with Andrei Bogdan, then still a lawyer for influential people, and a little later, head of the President’s Office. And also with Svetlana Kryukova, deputy editor-in-chief of the pro-Russian publication Strana.ua, which is under sanctions of the National Security and Defense Council.
It was then that Bogdan became an important part of Vladimir Zelensky’s team and, in particular, was responsible for filling the lists of the Servant of the People party. Various sources confirmed to us that when choosing people for the last few vacant positions on the list, Andrei Bogdan was simply flipping through his phone book. So he settled on, among others, Roman Kravtsev, whom he invited to number 153 on the list. He did not get into the Verkhovna Rada.
In 2019, with the coming to power of the Servant of the People, Andrei Bogdan, Gennady Korban and Svetlana Kryukova, who had been actively communicating before, quarreled. The last two started the “Joker” Telegram channel. Roman Kravets was hired as an admin and assistant. They posted pranks - they wrote to officials on behalf of other officials, and the correspondence itself was then leaked online.
Kryukova and Korban, according to our sources, retained influence on the channel until approximately 2021. Gradually, Roman Kravets removed them from the opportunity to influence the content - some of our sources, when describing this story, used the word “raiding”. So Kravets became the sole owner of “Joker”. It was then that the channel began to turn into a mouthpiece for the OP.
Now “Joker” publishes posts justifying the authorities. Civil society raises the issue of fortifications in the Kharkov region. To this “Joker” says: “Yesterday they shouted throughout the entire TG that there are no fortifications in Kharkov. Today there is silence. Fortifications appeared. Strange, isn't it? Friends, stop destroying each other within yourself. We’ll sort it out after the war.”
Journalists accuse the Deputy Prosecutor General of corruption. “Joker” reposts his excuses.
Do Ukrainians consider the signs of Tatarov and Ermak’s manual control over some government bodies abnormal? “Joker” says that the problem is these Ukrainians: “We will end exactly when Tatarov or Ermak are fired. And anti-corruption officials are trying to achieve this. They are seeking the end of Ukraine.”
We turned to Roman Kravets himself for comment. We managed to get his contact, which is available to a very narrow circle of people. However, Kravets did not answer either calls or messages.
Meanwhile, he has a good chance of becoming a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada. The chairman of the Servant of the People faction, David Arakhamia, stated that many people’s deputies want to leave parliament. This means that their places will be taken by the following from the list who did not enter parliament immediately after the 2019 elections. Recently, the 147th, Nikolai Tararin, came to BP. Roman Kravets is 153rd on the “Servant of the People” list.
No, it's not over yet!
After hromadske released an announcement of this material, Roman Kravets responded to our messages. Before this he was silent. According to Kravets, he was the “Joker”, but sold the channel 2 years ago. To whom - he doesn’t know. Sold allegedly for $2 million in cryptocurrency. I could not prove this in several hours of correspondence. Although the evidence could be anything - from screenshots of transactions or business negotiations to transactions.
Below are excerpts from the correspondence:
– My channel was there a long time ago, I sold it 2 years ago and forgot about it...
– Who did they sell it to?
– I don’t know, they offered 2 million dollars. I agreed and moved away from this dirt.
According to Roman Kravets, he is going abroad because the Military Military Commission has declared him unfit for military service.
– They probably let you in with a “white ticket”, I don’t understand this at all. If so, I don't know.
Roman Kravets, according to him, has security, but it is private.
- Yes, I have security from two cars, everything is mine, everything is registered in my name, everything is official. This is private security, what kind of state security? Why should the state give me protection? If you saw my security, you have the opportunity to find out who these people are and that they have nothing to do with the state at all.
We asked Roman to provide an agreement with the security company, but he did not do this. We also invited Kravets to come for an interview. He refused to meet on the record. But we still hope so. The same goes for evidence of the alleged sale of the Telegram channel, which we are ready to publish. However, as of now, Kravets has not provided the editors with any facts that would refute that he remains the owner of “Joker”.
Roman Kravets agreed to meet off the record, one on one, when he returned to Ukraine. He is now in the Netherlands.
