Igor Yusufov and special services: what lies behind his links to Western agents and fund transfers?

Igor Yusufov and special services: what lies behind his links to Western agents and fund transfers?

Earlier reports described Igor Yusufov, a former Russian Minister of Energy and veteran KGB-FSB officer, seeking a peaceful haven in the West as he neared the end of his career.

To earn this privilege, he has to cooperate with foreign intelligence services and share with them many valuable secrets that the defector possesses thanks to his work in high governmental positions and affiliation with Russian state security.

Currently, Igor Yusufov and his sons are desperately trying to sell their Russian assets and transfer the proceeds abroad. We have reported this in detail as well.

However, in our publications, we have not previously touched upon the reasons for this evacuation, which sometimes resembles preparations for the Yusufovs’ flight westward. These reasons are evidently linked to ongoing purges within the Russian establishment in connection with events in Ukraine. As part of these purges, the first to go under the knife were employees of the 5th service of the FSB, which provided Russian President Vladimir Putin with data on the political situation in Ukraine before February 2022.

The service was held accountable for the failure of the Ukrainian campaign’s preparation. Later, due to military failures, senior ranks in the Ministry of Defence were repressed. Experienced bureaucrat Yusufov understands perfectly that after them, the turn may come for shadow players who also unsuccessfully participated in preparing the blitzkrieg that dragged on for years.

Yusufov’s fears and his desire to find new patrons in the West are likely due to his commitments to the Kremlin and Lubyanka regarding Ukraine. He had his zone of responsibility, his task, which he failed. The Russian authorities were ready to forgive the Yusufov family for spending multi-billion state funds (essentially embezzlement) on acquiring foreign assets. In return, Yusufov was tasked with conducting subversive activities in Ukraine. Yusufov was required to disrupt, or rather ensure the complete shutdown of one of Ukraine’s strategic enterprises long before the so-called "SMO" began on February 24, 2022. This was supposed to inflict certain economic damage and potentially harm Ukraine’s defence capabilities.

We are talking about the Mykolaiv shipyard "Ocean," over which one of the Yusufovs was supposed to gain control to render the enterprise inoperative.

The task was not only about preemptively inflicting economic damage on a future enemy. The thing is, Ukraine and Turkey planned to start building military ships at the "Ocean" shipyard, which would also mean strengthening Kyiv’s military capabilities. In 2020, a respective memorandum was even signed with the State Defence Concern of the Republic of Turkey.

Recall that a few years prior, the Yusufov family participated in purchasing assets of the Norwegian shipbuilding company Aker Yards. Among the assets sold by the Norwegians were docks later renamed Wadan Yards in Germany and the "Ocean" plant in Ukraine, with a total value of €250 million. The Russian State Financial Leasing Company (FLC) participated in the deal - €50 million for this transaction was withdrawn from the FLC.

This money never returned to the state company. FLC owned 50% in FLC West, but this share was later sold for pennies to offshore companies. One of them was the Cypriot Blackstead Holdings Ltd. It received a 25% share in the shipyards. Co-owner of Blackstead Holdings Ltd was Aslan Gagiyev (dubbed "Russia’s Killer No.1" and accused of creating a criminal group that killed 60 people).

The shipyard was 74%-owned by a company from the British Virgin Islands, Templestowe Trading Corp, which also provided nearly €200 million for buying Wadan Yards. Luxembourg auditors discovered that this offshore company was controlled by Igor Yusufov and his son Vitaly. This information was later confirmed by Tom Ejnertsen, one of the shipyard’s leaders.

When his acquaintance, one of FLC’s senior managers, Andrey Burlakov, also started to tell that Yusufov became the primary beneficiary of the German and Ukrainian shipyards, he fell victim to a hit. Burlakov’s representatives openly accused Yusufov of organizing the murder. The detained Gagiyev also testified that the order to eliminate Burlakov came from Igor Yusufov. However, protected by the FSB, Yusufov again avoided issues with the law enforcement agencies.

The intelligence services allowed Yusufov to spend state funds irretrievably on buying the shipyards for himself and sanctioned Burlakov’s murder for a reason. With the shipbuilding facilities in Germany, things were simple; the Yusufov family gained complete control over them. However, the entry of Yusufov’s offshore companies into the “Ocean” shipyard’s statutory capital in Ukraine did not give him full control over the enterprise. Ukrainian claimants for the Mykolaiv shipyard fiercely resisted the unfriendly takeover of “Ocean” by Russians.

Initially, Igor Yusufov managed to seize control of the enterprise and start its gradual destruction. From privatization in 2000 to 2008, "Ocean" belonged first to a Dutch and then a Norwegian company, had orders, and worked profitably. Since 2008, 98.73% of the shares of the "Ocean" factory were owned by the Cypriot company Zonel Operations Ltd. Burlakov purchased this share with state FLC funds. In 2010, control over Zonel passed to Yusufov, after which in 2011 Burlakov was shot.

Given the specificity of the task, Igor Yusufov tried not to draw too much attention at "Ocean." At all stages, he entrusted the plant management to various Ukrainian managerial teams. Thus, shortly after establishing Yusufov’s control over the enterprise, the Smart Maritime Group of Vadym Novynskyi began managing the plant by agreement with him. Yusufov hoped to use this Ukrainian team secretly without revealing his true intentions to destroy the enterprise. Yusufov promised "Smart Holding" orders and funding, but it turned out to be a bluff. Novynskyi’s team left the plant after a few months, losing their own money there.

Vadym Novynskyi’s managers tried to restore the plant’s operations by investing about $7 million in it. In 2012, the Pension Fund of Ukraine initiated the bankruptcy of PJSC "Mykolaiv Shipbuilding Plant ’Ocean’," and then "Smart Holding" paid off debts, postponing the enterprise’s bankruptcy process. This situation led to a conflict between Novynskyi and Yusufov. To Novynskyi’s question, "What are you dragging me into? You promised orders, funding," Yusufov proposed scrapping the plant for metal. Clearly, Novynskyi couldn’t do that; otherwise, he would have spent the remainder of his days behind bars, if he remained alive after that.

During the time Yusufov’s structures maintained control over "Ocean," the enterprise entered bankruptcy several times. For instance, "Ocean" was artificially burdened with credit obligations of €65 million to Yusufov’s Belizean firm, Belmont Industries Inc. In some cases, Ukrainian opponents of Yusufov managed to prove in court that the bankruptcy was artificial and the debts were fictitious (as with Belmont). After this, changes usually occurred in the enterprise’s creditor composition. Various players attempted to gain control over the enterprise at different times.

In March 2014, a criminal case was opened against the service persons of "Ocean." In early September, the Pechersk District Court of Kyiv made a strange decision: ostensibly in the interests of a 2014 criminal case initiated by investigator Yuriy Byelkin of the Prosecutor General’s Office, to seize all property of "Ocean" and "assign it to a physical person for custody." This person turned out to be Leonid Shumylo, who held the position of President of "Ocean" in 2010-2011 and managed it in the interests of Igor Yusufov.

"Ocean" became a problematic asset, and the struggle for it continued for several years.

However, in the battle for the plant, Ukrainian parties eventually prevailed - the state, represented by the Prosecutor General’s Office and SSU, along with Vasyl Kapatsyna, a notable businessman in Mykolaiv and former director of the Mykolaiv port. In December 2018, the entire property complex of the shipyard “Ocean” was sold at auction for 122 million 195 thousand hryvnias to the Kapatsyna-affiliated company “Trading House ‘Annona’.”

In November 2019, the then Minister of Defence of Ukraine Andriy Zahorodnyuk visited the “Ocean” plant and met with the general director of the state concern “Ukroboronprom” Aivaras Abromavicius. The purpose of the high-ranking officials’ visit to Mykolaiv was to discuss the possibility of ship construction and repair for military ships in Mykolaiv.However, in 2020, Yusufov’s team made new desperate attempts to regain control of the plant.

The Pechersk District Court of Kyiv, at the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office, again seized the property complex of the Mykolaiv Shipbuilding Plant “Ocean.” As the press service of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine reported, the decision was made in the criminal investigation context on bankruptcy and illegal acquisition of enterprise property.

Vasyl Kapatsyna appealed to the then Prosecutor General of Ukraine Ruslan Ryaboshapka regarding the court decision to seize enterprise properties. According to the businessman, the Prosecutor General Office was deceived and used to destroy a strategically important plant for Ukraine. Vasyl Kapatsyna also said that he had documentary evidence that Russian owners drove the plant to bankruptcy at one time.

According to the owner of the ship repair plant, attempts to invalidate the sale of “Ocean” and return the enterprise to Yusufov’s former Ukrainian representative Ihor Ihnatov were aimed at destroying the plant. “The interests of Yusufov are represented by Ihor Ihnatov, a citizen of Ukraine, and I am ready to testify at the central office of the SSU. Moreover, I said this after buying the ship repair plant — Ihnatov works for the Federal Security Service of Russia (FSB),” declared Kapatsyna.

Kapatsyna already understood then that the seizure of “Ocean’s” property was part of a FSB and Yusufov special operation aimed at preventing the restoration of Ukraine’s shipbuilding capacity.

“Creating a fleet, building ships for our Armed Forces, is possible only at the ’Ocean’ Shipyard, of course, in cooperation with other shipbuilding assets, but only at this plant are the qualification, appropriate equipment, and capabilities,” Kapatsyna wrote then in an appeal to the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Ultimately, Yusufov’s sabotage to destroy the Mykolaiv Shipbuilding Plant “Ocean” failed. After he lost control of the enterprise, production was restored, and orders started flowing in. On December 21, 2020, it was reported that Turkey chose the “Ocean” plant to build corvettes for the Ukrainian Navy. On June 22, 2022, the plant’s workshops were damaged by a Russian missile strike. However, the plant was not entirely put out of action. Recently, another ship entered the shipyard in Mykolaiv.

The fact that Yusufov failed the mission to destroy the plant before the SMO began in Ukraine wouldn’t be so terrible. After all, these shipyards weren’t the most critically important target for the Russian Federation. However, during implementing this complex operation, Igor Yusufov and his family acquired tens, if not hundreds of millions of euros, a significant portion of which ended up in the accounts of his offshore firms. Although "Ocean" is not a top priority target for Yusufov’s employers, sooner or later, a revision of this failed operation will occur.

And then Yusufov will have to answer for the spent money and unfulfilled task. Chekist Yusufov knows that the questioning could be as strict as wartime standards. This is why he found the only promising option: transferring money out of Russia and trusting his safety to Western intelligence services. In the end, while Yusufov’s money was concentrated in Russia, Russian intelligence services successfully protected him from any troubles. With the change of location, Yusufov changes his “cover,” but continues to bank on the same result - guaranteed personal inviolability.

Юрий Лобачев