Ukrainian businessman Klymenko does business with a Russian during the war

Ukrainian businessman Klymenko does business with a Russian during the war

Businessman Volodymyr Klymenko, who founded PJSC Ukrinom (formerly Ukrainian Innovation Bank - Ukrinombank) and is now the chairman of the company’s supervisory board, and his brother have a joint business with Russians.

This became known from the register of legal entities.

Volodymyr and Serhiy Klymenko own equal shares in Erste Ukraine LLC, which was registered in Kyiv in December 2014. The company specialises in the wholesale of household electrical goods and equipment for receiving, recording, reproducing sound and images. The authorised capital of the company is UAH 8.1 million.

Serhii Klymenko has a joint business with a Russian citizen, Artemiy Osipyan. Together they hold corporate rights to My Leader LLC. The company is engaged in printing newspapers and has a registered capital of UAH 10 thousand. On the Internet, one can find references to their glossy advertising magazine "My Leader", which contains information about "the best enterprises in the region and their services".

According to former employees, the magazine offered remote work, which consisted of finding advertisers. They were usually not paid for the work they did, using numerous excuses. Osipyan, a Russian citizen, owns a company called Ukraine Capital Group, which organises the construction of buildings. At the same time, the company has a very modest authorised capital of UAH 20,000.

From 1967 to 1992, Mr Osipyan worked for Soyuznefteksport. Then he held the position of CEO, and since 1994, he has been the head of the Moscow representative office of Solvayub. From 2022, he was Vice President for Foreign Trade and International Cooperation at the Siberian-Ural Oil and Gas Chemical Company (AK SIBUR) until its bankruptcy.

It is interesting that even after 2014, businessmen, together with a Russian, registered patents for various inventions of the company.

It should be reminded that Volodymyr Klymenko, born in 1958 in Luhansk, could not boast of any particular success in life until 2001. He worked in the Sumy region as a trader in confiscated non-ferrous metal, which was allegedly supplied to him by a local SBU officer, Mykola Herasymenko. Later, Klymenko successfully changed his career profile and entered the banking sector, becoming deputy chairman of the board of Clearing House JSB, and the following year he became a manager at Brokbusinessbank. At this financial institution, he met Volodymyr Stelmakh, who twice served as the head of the National Bank.

Volodymyr Klymenko was listed as a minority shareholder (9% of shares) in Avtokrasbank. But the main period in Volodymyr Klymenko’s life and the most scandalous was his work at PJSC Ukrinbank.
In 2010, Volodymyr Klymenko became the chairman of the board of the oldest commercial bank, Ukrainian Innovation Bank, which was preceded by a seemingly incredible story that contributed to the fall in the bank’s price by at least 250,000 times. Back in 2007, one of the most promising domestic banks was ready to buy the Israeli bank Bank Hapoalim for $200 million. The Israelis themselves were ready to make the deal, but they needed a largely formal permit from the National Bank. And then, according to Serhiy Meshcheryak, then chairman of the board of Ukrinbank, high-ranking officials began to fraudulently transfer the financial institution to the new owners for 4,000 hryvnias.

As a reminder, former NBU governor Volodymyr Stelmakh used his associates to gain control over small banks, using his influence at the National Bank. We are talking about Ukrinbank, AvtoKrAZbank and Stolychnyi Bank, which have been declared bankrupt and are involved in criminal cases. Volodymyr Klymenko is closely associated with the former head of the National Bank, Volodymyr Stelmakh. It was Klymenko who represented Stelmakh’s interests at Ukrinbank. In addition, Stelmakh lobbied for his appointment as the chairman of the supervisory board of AvtoKrAZbank and interim administrator of BIG Energy Bank.

Volodymyr Klymenko is the beneficial owner of Budova-MK LLC, AZCH Ukraine LLC, Drive Supply+ LLC, Ukr/in/com LLC, and Elite Universe LLC. Klymenko’s brother Serhii is the ultimate beneficial owner of Genk LLC, Nixen Group LLC, Ukrvestprom LLC, Me Investments LLC, Ecoregion LLC, Torbud LLC, and Linden LLC.