In Kyiv, charges have been brought against the director of a company who ordered €1 million worth of equipment from russia

According to Ukrinform, Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko announced this on Telegram.

“The company, which manufactures cardboard and paper packaging, has been in operation since 1994: it is registered in Kyiv, has production facilities in the Luhansk region and branches in the Dnipropetrovsk and Kyiv regions. 99.5% of the company’s shares are owned by a Cypriot firm, and its beneficial owner – a Ukrainian citizen – has consistently headed the company since its foundation,” the Prosecutor General noted.

According to the investigation, in 2021 the company signed a contract with a russian manufacturer for the supply of equipment worth over €1.1 million. As part of the agreement, an advance payment of €810,000 was transferred to the russian company’s accounts.

Following the start of russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, despite the government’s ban on imports of goods from the aggressor state, the company’s director continued to cooperate with the russian side.

To circumvent the restrictions, the suspect enlisted the help of a Belarusian intermediary company. It was to this company that the supply of equipment was registered, which was subsequently imported into Ukraine via transit through one of the European Union countries.

Under this scheme, the remaining amount under the contract, totalling over €382,000, was transferred to the russian supplier. To expedite deliveries, the suspect also promised the aggressor’s representative an additional €92,400 to cover shipping costs and VAT.

“In this way, the man voluntarily and knowingly facilitated the generation of profit by an enterprise of the aggressor state, part of which, in the form of taxes, goes to the russian federation’s budget and is used to finance its Armed Forces,” stated Kravchenko.

During searches at the enterprise, consignment and transport documents, mobile phones and computer equipment were seized.

The man was detained in Kyiv. He was informed of the suspicion of aiding an aggressor state (Part 1 of Article 111-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). At the prosecutor’s request, the court imposed a non-alternative preventive measure in the form of detention.

According to media reports, the individual in question is businessman Gennadiy Minin, owner of the Rubizhne Cardboard and Packaging Plant.

This Ukrainian political and business figure, a former district council deputy from the pro-russian party "Opposition Platform – For Life", continued to engage in business activities in the production, collection and processing of cardboard during the full-scale russian invasion, not only in Ukraine, where he is a leading manufacturer, but also in the russian federation and, presumably, in the territory occupied by russia. This is evidenced by internal documents from his companies in the occupied parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions: the companies have re-registered under russian law. The businessman himself has denied this.

The investigation also noted that he holds a russian passport, and that at one point Viktor Medvedchuk asked russian President Vladimir Putin, among other things, to lift russian sanctions against this businessman’s companies, and he succeeded in doing so.

Source: Ukrinform