Strategic JSC "Antonov" - remotely controlled from Germany, and even bypassing Ukroboronprom? A former prosecutor from the time of Yanukovych, Viktor Avdeev, made a rapid career rise in ten years from a “mask show” in a boutique on Khreshchatyk to the position of actually the second person in the national aviation concern.
However, not so long ago, amid scandals surrounding possible abuses at the enterprise, Avdeev quit and surfaced in Germany, where he heads the local Antonov Logistic Salis and lives in grand style.
How did a trio of top managers - Gavrilov, Avdeev and Zhuravlev - end up with total control over the financial flows of Antonov JSC and why do they need a private company in Leipzig? For what merits did Mr. Victor earn UAH 12 million in a German company last year and why did he so hastily “relocate” amid a number of criminal proceedings? And finally, how did the “leak” from CNN foil the plans of the “Gavrilovites” to withdraw $50 billion from Ukraine to distant Brazil during the war?
The figure of Viktor Avdeev, whom insiders call almost the “gray eminence” of the airline giant, became of interest to journalists against the backdrop of an investigation into possible tender abuses at Antonov. In particular, the basis for the scandalous purchase of air conditioners was an internal memo approved directly by Avdeev as acting deputy. General Director of the company Evgeniy Gavrilov.
But where did Avdeev get into aviation and what did he do before?
The hero of our investigation was born in Simferopol. At first he chose the prosecutor's path for himself. He started as an intern in 2010 in the Svyatoshinsky district of the capital. During the time of Yanukovych, he made a good career, and in the summer of 2014, after the Revolution of Dignity, instead of lustration he managed to transfer to the city prosecutor's office. There I got into my first big scandal.
In August 2014, shocking footage from the Graf jewelry boutique on Khreshchatyk appeared online. They show a group of security officials from prosecutors, special forces, the State Emergency Service and the police searching a store. The basis for the investigative actions was a statement from GO-noname that they were selling dangerous radioactive watches in “Graf”. This was enough for the “prosecutors” to obtain permission for a search and “seizure.”
“Having disabled the surveillance cameras, they started a real looting. Everyone, even witnesses, stole jewelry and money. However, the Xiv thieves made a mistake; several cameras were hidden and even recorded sound,” says the journalist.
Later, the owners of the boutique said that they had been robbed of 2.5 million euros.
And it was Viktor Avdeev, who had just transferred to the city prosecutor’s office, who was assigned to investigate the main case against fellow robbers. And this is definitely not the namesake, because the owners of the boutique even tagged Victor’s Facebook page. However, after Avdeev’s work in court, the case... fell apart.
“White threads were sticking out everywhere. For a year, the defendants could not be found for questioning; part of the loot, according to the official version, was simply planted under the door of the prosecutor's office. How did it all end? Yes, in principle, nothing good. most now even occupy even higher positions. Then, through the court, the owners of the boutique sued for 25 million hryvnia in compensation from the budget,” notes Igor Khmury.
The editors of StopCor submitted a number of requests to the prosecutor's office to clarify the details of this long-standing case, but in response they received mostly replies. However, it became known that Avdeev was even promoted after the investigation, and the Prosecutor General awarded him the rank of junior justice adviser.
But the owners of the boutique did not let things go.
In March 2016, Avdeev was brought to disciplinary liability for improper performance of official duties. And already in May of this year he is taking parental leave. But it’s not destined to “wait it out.”
After scandals and an internal investigation, the Prosecutor General’s Office opened a new criminal proceeding in 2018, which the Bureau, the State Bureau of Investigation, was again tasked with investigating. Against this background, in the spring of 2017, Avdeev resigned from the authorities on time at his own request. And he immediately goes to work at the State Aviation Service of Ukraine, where he heads the legal department.
A new page in life begins for Avdeev at the State Aviation Service - both official and personal.
There, among his subordinates, he finds a new love - Valeria Dremlyuga, whom, judging by the declarations, he married in 2019. It is interesting that a year before this, Avdeev’s future new mother-in-law opened a private aviation safety training center in Kropyvnytskyi.
Among the founders was the full namesake of the teacher at the local flight academy, where Avdeev himself studied, and Odessa resident Vyacheslav Khomyakov. His namesake is known in Odessa as acting. director of the airport, which was “squeezed out” from the townspeople and now this case is being investigated in connection with the former “shadow” owners of the city.
“The company of the mother-in-law, teacher and scandalous resident of Odessa received a certificate for training aviation safety specialists from the State Aviation Service in 2021. Of course, the fact that at that moment the son-in-law was the chief lawyer of this service, and the daughter was a senior specialist in one of the departments, does not indicate any nepotism,” comments Igor Khmury.
The next stage of this story starts in 2022 with the start of a full-scale invasion.
In April 2022, Avdeev resigns from the State Aviation Service and becomes the second person in the new Antonov management team. By the way, in that year alone, this post brought him almost 3 million UAH in official payments from the bombed aviation giant. As Evgeniy Gavrilov’s deputy for operational and administrative activities, Avdeev actually managed all purchases.
And an interesting line begins to appear in his declaration - part-time salary at the German Antonov Logistic Salis. Approximately 12 million UAH for 2023.
“Finally, we have received at least one meaningful response from Antonov to numerous requests. And she detailed some information from insiders and open sources. The fact is that “Antonov” itself was not as interesting to Avdeev as another company – the German company “Antonov Logistic Salis”,” the investigator suggests.
What kind of company is this?
Let's dive a little into history. When the USSR was already struggling in economic agony, all large enterprises were stagnating. Kyiv "Antonov" is no exception. Therefore, its leadership obtained permission from Gorbachev to begin commercial activities with foreign clients. After all, a lot of AN aircraft flew around the world.
However, the Antonov state enterprise could not conduct direct commercial activities either under the Union or under independent Ukraine, purely legally. This is how foreign analogues were born.
At first we worked with the British. Then with the Russians because of their giant Volga-Dnepr. And even after the Maidan. But they began to dump on international cargo transportation services. Then the German Leipzig entered the arable land, where the Antonov Logistic Salis company was created in 2018.
“An important point. "Salis" is not the legal daughter of "Antonov". Even now, when it has turned from a state-owned enterprise into a joint-stock company. That is, “Salis” is a private company owned by another private company, Antonov, which in turn is owned by another structure, Ukroboronprom, whose shares are finally owned by the state,” notes Khmury.
Thus, Salis is legally very far from the state of Ukraine, especially after the corporatization of Antonov.
Officially, Antonov Logistic Salis was created for cooperation with NATO. The alliance signed a contract under which it reserved part of the aircraft fleet in Germany in exchange for regular millions of foreign currency. In parallel, Salis received permission from Antonov to service branded aircraft around the world and commercial transportation on its own behalf.
Alexander Gritsenko was at the sources of the Leipzig company. In 2022, he was first suspended, and with the arrival of a new team, he was “caught up” with criminal proceedings.
Gritsenko himself refused an interview for StopCor, but answered some questions through intermediaries. He claims that everything can be documented. So, according to the former director of Salis, it was he who created this company and donated his controlling share in exchange for the position.
“The Antonov Logistics Salis GmbH company was created as a private company, 51% of the shares belonged to me, and 49% of the company shares belonged to the German company Air Cargo Net. Before creating the company, I had an agreement with O.D. Donets. , that I own 51% of the company’s shares, which I will subsequently donate to the Antonov state enterprise. In 2019, I fulfilled my obligations,” says Gritsenko.
Further, according to him, it was the former head of Antonov who agreed to the resale of 49 percent of the German shares to the suspicious Belgian company Air Cargo Solution.
“I met Gavrilov in March 2022, when he was on a business trip to Antonov Logistics Salis GmbH. He asked me about the SALIS program and was interested in its historical component. Later, after his appointment to the position of acting. General Director of the Antonov State Enterprise, he invited me to return to the position of Managing Director of the ALS company,” says Alexander.
However, already in the summer of the same year, instead of returning to his post, Gritsenko received accusations from the “new team” that resulted in criminal proceedings.
According to the only meaningful response from Antonov JSC to StopCor’s request, already in September 2022, Viktor Avdeev will be appointed to replace Gritsenko. At the same time, he continued to work as acting first deputy. Victor only in August of this year, when journalists and regulatory authorities became actively interested in Antonov.
On the same day that Avdeev left, Mikhail Zhuravlev submitted a declaration of a candidate for his position.
But let's return to Leipzig. According to StopCor sources, Avdeev left the country a long time ago and has not returned. But he accumulated almost a million euros of savings in one of the German banks.
Against this background, last year a scandal broke out around Antonov JSC in distant Brazil.
Local CNN insiders highlighted to their overseas colleagues the meeting of Antonov representatives with the government of Sao Paulo. They say that ours agreed with the Brazilians on investments of 50 billion dollars.
On April 24, 2023, news appears that the agreements have been suspended due to pro-Russian speeches by the President of Brazil.
Amid the scandal, the Ukrainian embassy in Brazil sends a letter to Antonov marked “urgent.” As it turned out, they were not aware of the negotiations on the plant at all. hype."
And on the same day, a message appears on the official page of “Antonov” in which the “Gavrilovites” refute everything and demand not to believe CNN sources, but to believe only them.
After this, Brazilian journalists sent letters to the Antonov press service for another week asking for an explanation. And, interestingly, the Brazilian press even named the names of those who probably conducted these scandalous negotiations. This is one of the employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the same Viktor Avdeev. And if the diplomat was fired after that, Avdeev was not.
“Here’s one last interesting and exclusive insider. At the beginning of July of this year, Avdeev sends Gavrilov an official letter from Germany. In it, he reminds that there are many NAs in the world that need to be serviced. And he suggests that he will be the one to do this - exclusively on behalf of the company. And Mr. Gavrilov was unable to refuse his comrade,” sums up Igor Khmury.
We would like to remind you that, against the backdrop of the war, Antonov JSC probably overpaid millions of hryvnias in tenders for the purchase of steel pipes and air-conditioning equipment – this was the conclusion reached by StopCor investigator Igor Khmury, having analyzed in detail the aircraft concern’s purchases and compared prices with the market average. Against this background, Ukroboronprom became interested in the activities of the concern’s management - they announced the seizure of documents and an inspection of Antonov.
