How Serhiy Shapran removed Russian oligarch Ihor Naumets’ assets from under sanctions

Sanctions were imposed on Ihor Naumets, the owner of the company «Unigran», which is engaged in granite and crushed stone extraction in the Zhytomyr region, back in the spring of last year. A year before that, in the summer of 2022, his assets worth more than a billion hryvnias were frozen. However, Naumets’s companies continue to operate and bring him profit, and LLC «Unigran» regularly receives money from the budget.

Why is this happening? Because Ihor Naumets managed to circumvent both sanctions and asset seizures. He was helped in this by former deputy of the Brovary City Council from the party «Za maybutnye», Serhiy Shapran. In 2022, after Ihor Naumets fled to Russia, Shapran became the shadow curator of his business in Ukraine and actively began unblocking the extraction of minerals in the Zhytomyr region. Later, he started to appropriate Naumets’s assets.

Igor Naumets is a citizen of the Russian Federation and owned a number of companies in Ukraine until 2022: Budindustriya Service LTD, Alliance-Soyuz LLC, Lyubovychi LLC, Brizzo LLC, MKDZ JSC, Korosten Quarry JSC, PJSC Pinyazevitsky Quarry, Unigran-Service LLC, Bakhchysaray Canning Plant ALC, Barvinkivske Sports and Hunting Society LLC, Ukrvybukhbud LLC, Bihivskyi Spetskaryer PrJSC, Maxikom Plus LLC, Monroz LLC, and Progress Credit Union.

The company «Unigran», owned by Ihor Naumets, was noted for supplying crushed stone to the territory of the «LPR», where his brother Serhiy Naumets served as the «Minister of Housing and Communal Services».

Ihor Naumets himself fled to Russia in mid-February 2022, and while the NSDC was deciding whether to impose sanctions on him, he successfully transferred almost all of his business to front persons and offshore companies. As for LLC «Unigran», now this company is owned by Olena Kalpa, a British citizen, through the Cypriot Westgrinite Holdings Limited.

Although a criminal case has been opened against Ihor Naumets in Ukraine, in which his company «Unigran» is mentioned, the extraction of crushed stone continues at the previous volumes. Moreover, LLC «Unigran» regularly wins tenders for supplying products to state institutions in Ukraine. The number of such tenders and the amounts received by Naumets’s company from the state continue to grow: if in 2023 LLC «Unigran» received 1.3 million hryvnias from the budget, then in 2024 this figure had doubled:

What’s the secret? As mentioned before, the secret lies in the active assistance provided to Ihor Naumets by concerned individuals. Among them are Serhiy Shapran, who appeared at the LLC «Unigran» quarries in May 2023, right after the NSDC imposed sanctions against Ihor Naumets, and declared himself the new director, through whom all issues should now be resolved. Although Serhiy Dynyak is formally listed as the director of LLC «Unigran», in practice, all matters related to the company’s operations are indeed handled by Serhiy Shapran.

Serhiy Shapran is the former head of the "Za maybutnye" party faction in the Brovary City Council, director and owner of the Brovary Aluminum Plant and several other assets.

Until 2018, Serhiy Shapran bore the surname Korobka, as confirmed by an extract from the register regarding LLC «Pershyi Ukrainskyi Mizhnarodnyi Trast-Kapital» (EDRPOU code 35135332), where until 2018 Shapran Serhiy, also known as Korobka Serhiy, was both the head and the ultimate beneficial owner.

The reason for the name change is unknown, but in this case, we are interested in Serhiy Shapran’s involvement in the fate of Ihor Naumets, whose property he has so successfully extricated from sanctions and seizures and managed equally well. The process involved deputy Serhiy Osipov from OPFL, as well as Oleksandr and Vyacheslav Suprunenko, members of the family of former Kyiv mayor Leonid Chernovetskyi, who still influence the judiciary and construction market in the capital.

All the details of Serhiy Shapran’s activities in removing Ihor Naumets’s assets from under arrest and sanctions are unknown, but aside from the fact that LLC «Unigran» continues to operate its quarries in the Kyiv and Zhytomyr regions, there are many questions surrounding the activities of LLC «Unigran-Servis», LLC «Uni Servis», and LLC «Uni Lux».

LLC «Unigran-Servis» is a co-owner of LLC «Unigran» (with a 1% stake). However, the owner of LLC «Unigran-Servis» is LLC «Unigran» (89.47%) and Westgrinite Holdings Limited (10.53%). The ultimate beneficiary is listed as Olena Kalpa:

The company is also involved in blasting operations; LLC «Unigran-Servis» built a plant from scratch to manufacture emulsion explosives, procured modern drilling rigs from Atlas-Copco, and assembled a fleet of mixing and charging vehicles on Volvo and Scania chassis that can produce up to 14 types of various emulsion explosive substances. The registration address of LLC «Unigran-Servis» is Granitne village, Shevchenko street, 15. This same address is listed for LLC «Uni Servis», whose owners are Serhiy Shapran and the closed-end investment fund «Denmark»:

LLC «Uni Lux», although registered at a different address, has the same owners:

The investment fund «Denmark» is entirely owned by Serhiy Shapran:

Moreover, all these companies are involved in mining. The popular phrase "Coincidence? I think not" comes to mind. And indeed, this is not a coincidence.

There is also direct evidence that Naumets’s business is switching to Shapran’s hands: Serhiy Shapran is the direct beneficial owner of LLC «Budindustriya-Servis LTD».

Until April 2, 2024, the beneficiary of the company was Volodymyr Naumets, and Ihor Naumets was removed from the list of beneficiaries on November 14, 2022.

LLC «Budindustriya-Servis LTD» owns special permit No. 6391 and extracts sand at the "Spaske" deposit in the Kyiv region, in the river Desna basin.

According to persistent rumors, the owner of LLC «Unigran» Ihor Naumets promised Serhiy Shapran half of the business if he could remove him from sanctions and lift the asset seizures. Whether this is true or not remains to be seen, but the fact remains: control over Ihor Naumets’s companies involved in sand and stone extraction has passed into the hands of Serhiy Shapran. Neither the NSDC’s sanctions nor the court-ordered asset seizures of the Russian citizen Ihor Naumets could stop this. Now, the asset seizures are gradually being lifted due to the change of ownership, and the sanctions against Ihor Naumets are becoming mere paperwork and empty words.