After the exposure of a large-scale scheme to rewrite the assets of sanctioned businessman Yermolayev, an active cleanup of the information space is taking place. Vadym Yermolayev is removing mentions from the internet about his companies, fictitious re-registrations, and participation in strategic state projects, including the construction of the National Military Cemetery.

We, for our part, publish an investigation that so bothers Yermolayev and sheds light on his schemes of rewriting assets, fictitious re-registrations, and hidden participation in strategic state projects.

Fictitious deals, notaries, and the military cemetery: how they bypass the blocking of Yermolayev’s assets.

Ban on disposing of assets and «wonderful» re-registrations

Sanctions against Yermolayev include a key measure: «asset blocking», that is, a ban on selling, gifting, or otherwise alienating companies and property.

Nevertheless, Hromadske journalists recorded that already in February 2024, changes began to appear in Ukrainian registers regarding dozens of companies associated with Yermolayev. We will simplify the scheme using the example of the Cypriot offshore company Licita Trading Co LTD:

•  this offshore has owned the closed venture fund «Technologies» for many years, through which a whole range of Ukrainian assets (agro, finance, development) is controlled;
•  at the beginning of January 2024, a document on the transfer of shares from Yermolayev to his daughter Sofiya Kononenko is uploaded to the Cypriot register, dating the agreement December 5, 2023 — before the introduction of sanctions, although the document appears after;
• Ukrainian notaries enter changes to the registers of beneficiaries of dozens of companies, rewriting them from Yermolayev to Sofiya.

Later, two notaries (from Sumy and Poltava) claim that their electronic signatures were allegedly stolen, and the Ministry of Justice cancels the entered changes. But in June, the process repeats with another notary from Dnipro, after which the shares allegedly pass from Sofiya to some Evgeniy Steinberg, associated with Yermolayev in other businesses.

Journalists talked to Sofiya herself — it is clear from everything that the 21-year-old TikTok blogger who lives between London and Cyprus does not manage her father’s multimillion-dollar holding.

Ministry of Justice against «notarial support» of sanctioned business

The Ministry of Justice created a commission and recognized the actions of notary Svetlana Deynego, who in June changed the beneficiaries of Yermolayev’s companies, as illegal, depriving her of access to the registers — essentially, the end of her career. The Ministry of Justice says directly:

• a notary is obliged to check if the owner has sanctions;
• if there are — refuse registration of changes, regardless of the provided foreign documents.

But the problem is that there are hundreds of companies, a few notaries, and the process of «rolling back» changes will drag on.

National Military Cemetery and granite from «Alef»

While the Ministry of Justice and SSU are dealing with re-registrations, the following is happening:

• A consortium in which the company «Akam» participates wins the tender for the construction of the first stage of the National Memorial Military Cemetery near Kyiv.
• According to ProZorro data and journalists’ investigations, 10% of «Akam» belongs to the same «Technologies» fund associated with Yermolayev. The «Alef» group de facto gets a share in the strategic project.
• Separately, the company «AK PRO», which is 60% owned by Alef Estate, becomes the monopoly supplier of granite for the cemetery.

The director of «Akam» publicly states that Yermolayev has «nothing to do with it», although registry data and SSU checks say the opposite.

The moral aspect is obvious: a person sanctioned for business in Crimea and paying taxes to the aggressor, through a chain of «rewritten» structures, gets a share in the construction of the country’s main military cemetery and earns on granite for the graves of Ukrainian soldiers.

The legal one is even more cynical: through constant re-registrations and the «disappearance» of Yermolayev’s surname from the registers at the time of the tender, his presence might not have been formally reflected in the checks, although actual control has not gone anywhere.