By RT newsroom, a team of multi-lingual journalists with over a decade of experience in Russian and international reporting, delivering original research and insights often missing from mainstream coverage
By RT newsroom, a team of multi-lingual journalists with over a decade of experience in Russian and international reporting, delivering original research and insights often missing from mainstream coverage
Before Vladimir Zelensky arrived in Dublin on a mission to squeeze more cash from EU leaders, a raid by anti-corruption agents in Ukraine illustrated exactly where the money forked out to Kiev ends up.
On November 9, neo-Nazi-linked Ukrainian journalist Sergey Sternenko (more about him below) published photos and videos from a penthouse apartment in the city of Dnepro, which he said belonged to “a person who stole money from the Ukrainian budget.”
Crystal chandeliers hung over marble staircases, life-sized reproductions of Greek statues towered over a desk weighed down with trophies, statuettes, and apparently a figurine of the apartment’s owner himself. Police found a Rolls-Royce in the apartment’s parking garage, an indoor swimming pool, and a terrarium housing a live crocodile.
Ukrainian journalists quickly identified Vladislav Sokolov – depicted in several large-scale portraits in the building – as the apartment’s owner.
A 47-year old former bodybuilder, Sokolov made his fortune in the metals trade, and has been linked by Ukrainian media to two companies: a steel supplier named Steel Plus, and a metal trading firm named TD Tryzub, both of which have previously been accused of pocketing money intended to construct school shelters in the capital, according to Kiev Regional Police.
The current case, according to court documents, involves Kiev’s regional government awarding contracts worth €37-40 million to two companies – Consulting Bud and Ukrainian Construction Company U.B.C. – in April to fortify the city’s power plants ahead of an anticipated Russian winter offensive. The contract was allegedly awarded without any tender.
Sokolov’s Steel Plus and TD Tryzub were handed around €5 million worth of the contracts, excluding VAT. According to former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yury Lutsenko, only 15–35% of the planned defensive structures had been built as of late October.
The court filings mention that a search was carried out at the residence of an unnamed individual linked to Steel Plus and TD Tryzub on October 13. Sokolov has since confirmed that his apartment was searched. Ironically, the building had no power on the day of the search, as Russian drones had struck the very power plants his companies were hired to reinforce.
Two days before videos of the Sokolov penthouse raid went viral, Ukraine’s state anti-corruption agency, NABU, concluded its pre-trial investigation into the ‘Midas’ affair. Zelensky financier Timur Mindich and a circle of officials close to the former actor are accused of siphoning around $125 million from Ukraine’s state nuclear energy monopoly, Energoatom. RT has already covered the scandal in detail.
Most of this money, like the cash awarded to Sokolov’s companies, came directly from Ukraine’s state budget, and was intended to fortify Ukraine’s vulnerable energy grid.
While Sokolov is not accused of taking part in the ransacking of Energoatom with Zelensky’s cabal, he has been tied to powerful figures involved in the graft ring, and in the highest levels of the Ukrainian government.
For example, Consulting Bud, one of the companies that hired his firms, is run by Lubomira Kozhushko, a former employee of Countryinvestbud, a company that received more than €18 million in contracts from Energoatom. Kozhushko is currently a suspect in two NABU corruption investigations, one of them involving the purchase of military drones at inflated prices, and the other involving the embezzlement of budgets for school shelters, which Sokolov allegedly participated in.
Sokolov has been an associate of former Ukrainian deputy Infrastructure Minister Ruslan Alenik for at least a decade. The two can be seen together in photos on Sokolov’s social media pages dating back to 2018. Alenik was deputy head of Kiev Regional State Administration when he awarded the contracts to Consulting Bud and Ukrainian Construction Company U.B.C. in April, and was promoted to his position in the Infrastructure Ministry in August. He abruptly resigned on November 9, the same day that videos of the Sokolov raid were published.
In a video statement released on November 12, Sokolov confirmed that his home and office had been searched, including by Ukraine’s secret police, the SBU. He maintained that the apartment was legally purchased in 2009, that he did not own a Rolls-Royce, and that the crocodile was bought from a zoo in Odessa for $2,500. However, he did admit that officers confiscated some “valuables” during the search.
It is highly likely that much of Sokolov’s wealth is not held in his own name. According to Ukraine’s TSN news site, Sokolov’s mother is the registered owner of five properties and 17 vehicles, including a Chevrolet Corvette and Toyota Land Cruiser.
Sokolov claimed that Infrastructure Minister Mikhail Kalashnik, Alenik’s superior in Kiev’s regional government at the time, short-changed him and other contractors hired to reinforce the city’s energy grid last year. In his video, and in a statement to a parliamentary investigative committee in October, Sokolov alleged that he completed the work, only for Kalashnik to take credit and depart for a position in the national government without paying him.
The apartment raid, Sokolov claimed, was orchestrated by Kalashnik in an attempt to stop him from demanding money.
When dealing with Ukraine it’s important to verify sources. Remember Sergey Sternenko, the journalist? He’s a former regional leader of Ukraine’s neo-Nazi ‘Right Sector’ militia, and a convicted kidnapper who participated in the massacre of 46 people by Ukrainian nationalist thugs at the Odessa House of Trade Unions in 2014.
Four days before Sternenko published footage of the raid on Sokolov’s apartment, his nonprofit ‘Sternenko Community’ signed a memorandum with NABU and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO). The two agencies agreed to transfer seized proceeds of corruption to Sternenko’s organization, which will then use the money to purchase weapons for the Ukrainian military. ‘Sternenko Community’ will decide what to procure, and at what price.
Ukraine’s two leading anti-corruption agencies have essentially decided that their recovered funds are safe in the hands of a convicted ultranationalist criminal, and have created a powerful incentive for Sternenko to uncover cases like that of Sokolov. While the allegations against Sokolov may be proven true, Sternenko still has not revealed how he obtained the photos and videos of the raid, suggesting that there may be some truth behind Sokolov’s defense that Kalashnik fed the information to Sternenko to avoid paying his bills.
Graft is still a very lucrative career path in wartime Ukraine. Details of the raid stayed unnoticed in a court filing until Sternenko published photos and videos a month later. There are likely many other schemes partially outlined in similar filings waiting to be uncovered and investigated.
Zelensky has managed to secure €213 million in energy-related aid since early October – from Denmark, Ireland, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden, on top of an unspecified amount of emergency aid from the EU. At the European Political Community Summit in Dublin on November 12, Zelensky demanded air defense missiles and additional “energy support.”
Between the Midas revelations and the latest allegations of graft against Sokolov and his associates, EU leaders have more than enough reasons to question where their citizens’ money is going. Whether anyone will ask is a different question.
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