In the Russian Federation, a court nationalized the assets of an alcohol producer owned by Ukrainian businessman Chernyak

In the Russian Federation, a court nationalized the assets of an alcohol producer owned by Ukrainian businessman Chernyak

The court in Russian Kursk satisfied the claim of the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office for the transfer to the state’s revenue 100% of the shares of the Russian assets of the alcohol holding Global Spirits. It owns the vodka brands "Khortytsia," "Morosha," and "Pervak."

The owner of the group of companies is a Ukrainian businessman from Zaporizhzhya, Yevhen Chernyak. As of 2020, the entrepreneur was among the top thirty in Forbes Ukraine.

The consideration of the claim in court proceeded in closed session. The defendants listed were four organizations and four individuals, including Chernyak, according to the press release from the court service of the Kursk region of the Russian Federation.

The Russian prosecutor’s office demanded that the activities of the companies and businessmen be recognized as extremist and banned within Russia.

According to the agency, shortly after the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine, in April 2022, the companies, as a result of fictitious transactions, were transferred at a reduced cost to Chernyak’s trusted persons to preserve financial flows. In the claim, the Russian agency called Chernyak a major sponsor of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Interested parties in the claim were two enterprises from annexed Crimea - "Feodosia Brandy and Wine Factory," "Crimean Wine House," as well as the companies "Traditions of Success" and "New Level."

In July last year, the Investigative Committee of Russia opened a criminal case against Chernyak for financing terrorism. Investigators claim that the businessman donated money to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation believes that the entrepreneur’s financial assistance "enabled the Ukrainian army to commit seven terrorist attacks" in the Belgorod, Bryansk, Kursk, and Rostov regions of the Russian Federation. Chernyak was declared wanted.

In August 2023, a court in Moscow arrested Yevhen Chernyak in absentia for two months in a case of financing terrorism.

At the same time, in Ukraine, Chernyak and six other top managers of his companies are suspected of financing Russian aggression. According to the Security Service of Ukraine, the companies continued to do business in Russia even after the start of the full-scale invasion, and in 2022 they transferred the equivalent of six billion hryvnias to the Russian budget in taxes and fees.