$250 million and “gray” metallurgy: how fraudster Oleg Tsyura helps launder money and sell Russian ferroalloys under foreign flags
Oleg Tsyura has reportedly launched an aggressive campaign to remove public references to his alleged schemes, suspected money-laundering activities, and connections with Ukrainian state-owned enterprises. For this reason, we are publishing the full investigations that appear to have unsettled the controversial businessman.
The “Ukrainian Swiss” Oleg Tsyura is a little-known financier whose business connections stretch from figures involved in the Odesa Port Plant and United Mining and Chemical Company cases to Russian metallurgical oligarchs evading sanctions. His story is a vivid example of how, through a network of companies, offshores, and partners, one can service schemes linked to state assets and Russian capital for years. Below — a closer look at this tangled web of corruption.
It’s the story of a Ukrainian-Swiss businessman whose network stretches from Kyiv to Moscow’s industrial elite—bridging Ukrainian political circles, both clean and corrupt, and Russian metallurgical tycoons who’ve somehow slipped past the sanctions net.
The story is about a businessman, almost unknown to the general public, Oleg Tsyura, who had joint business ventures with a suspect in a case of losses amounting to over 700 million hryvnias. Overall, this scam with state companies – the Odesa Port Plant and the United Mining and Chemical Company (UMCC) – was estimated at 10 billion hryvnias.
But we do not focus primarily on the amount of losses or this particular scheme. It is just an attempt to draw a logical line regarding events that trace business connections from Ukrainian corruptionists to Russian (non)oligarchs who have escaped sanctions.
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So, let’s start unraveling the web of business connections.
At the end of October, the Appeals Chamber of the High Anti-Corruption Court left unchanged the preventive measure for the former head of the State Property Fund, Dmytro Sennychenko. He is subject to arrest as an organizer of a criminal group that caused the state the aforementioned damage.
Currently, only two participants in the criminal scheme – Mykola Synytsya and Yuriy Lypka – have preventive measures in the form of bail and are in Ukraine. The other accomplices – Dmytro Sennychenko, Andriy Hmyrin, and five others – have left. And as shown by a recent investigation by BIHUS.info, they are having a great time abroad.
However, there is another character in this story who went unnoticed by the NABU and SAPO investigation. We are talking about Oleg Tsyura, a “German” entrepreneur, naturalized in Switzerland, who is a business partner of one of the suspects – Serhiy Bayrak.
Let’s be frank: NABU detectives, under the procedural leadership of SAPO, cannot easily reach foreigners in procedural terms. It is almost impossible, even though they perform their duties as best as possible among domestic criminal justice bodies.
I assume that Oleg Tsyura does not have Ukrainian citizenship. Although it would be worthwhile to check this. Therefore, the issue of extradition, given the legal grounds for it, is not currently on the agenda. However, the international legal department was created to try and facilitate, in procedural ways, the implementation of the principle of inevitability of punishment. After all, German or Swiss prosecutors are certainly no worse than Ukrainian ones.
Now a bit about Oleg Tsyura’s business interests abroad.
In 2005, Tsyura became a co-owner of ITS International Trade & Sourcing GmbH & Co. KG. Also, for 2 years, Tsyura headed another company with a similar name – ITS International Trade & Sourcing Verwaltung GmbH. Interestingly, both German companies are registered at the same address and have a common co-owner – Serhiy Bayrak. I already mentioned him a little earlier. Bayrak is also involved in the “Sennychenko case” as one of the three key co-organizers of the scheme.
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According to the investigation, Bayrak organized a scheme of mediation between state enterprises and commercial buyers of these enterprises’ products at deliberately underestimated prices in agreement with Sennychenko. An additional function of Bayrak was indirect communication between Sennychenko and another person involved in the case – Andriy Hmyrin.
Furthermore, according to declassified NABU audio recordings, for their involvement in the corruption scheme, Bayrak and Hmyrin received 25% each from the deals, while Sennychenko received 50%. Currently, Bayrak, according to unofficial information, is allegedly giving incriminating testimony.
Regarding Oleg Tsyura, neither he nor his respective companies are involved in this case. However, his aforementioned direct connection with Bayrak through joint German companies and related business types to the scheme organized by Sennychenko should attract the attention of not only representatives of the criminal justice authorities but also of experts focused on sanctioning of Russian subjects involved in the war. And I will explain this connection further.
Currently, it is known that the aforementioned German company of Tsyura and Bayrak – ITS International Trade & Sourcing GmbH & Co KG – participated in an auction for the sale of a batch of zirconium ores from the state-owned Eastern Mining and Processing Plant in 2018. Winning by 1 thousand hryvnias with a total lot cost of 45 million hryvnias seems quite strange.
Later, this competition was “replayed” due to even more strange decision of the commission, leading to another German company – Buss&Buss Spezialmetalle GmbH being declared the winner.
Subsequently, there was a lawsuit by ITS. As a result, the legal-business history passed through all three judicial instances, where the commission’s decision was legalized.
It is logical to assume that these strange “actions” regarding the supply of zirconium were stopped when the Tsyura-Bayrak duo realized that there was a direct line traced to the leadership of the UMCC by Peter Davis. By the way, Bayrak was an adviser and partner of Davis, who was appointed during Dmytro Sennychenko’s term.
Already in 2020, ITS International Trade & Sourcing GmbH & Co Tsyura “lit up” in a case concerning the supply of ilmenite ore from the Irshansk mining and processing plant, part of the UMCC (now sold to Azerbaijanis at auction).
Context – the said plant used to consistently supply ilmenite ore to the “Crimean Titan”, which currently remains occupied by Russians in Crimea. There were accusations in media that in 2020, supplies continued in that direction, albeit with illegal elements. However, this requires documentary evidence.
For understanding, “Crimean Titan” was controlled by oligarch Dmytro Firtash, who had two business partners – Serhiy Lyovochkin and Ivan Fursin. Meanwhile, the Lyovochkin family not only had seats in parliament, but also owns the bank “Clearing House”, where the already mentioned Peter Davis was a member of the supervisory board. And Serhiy Bayrak worked as the director of LLC “UA-Media”, which was not unfamiliar to the Firtash-Lyovochkin structures [this time we will not detail their collaboration with managing a top Ukrainian television channel in the pre-war period].
The main business of Tsyura is providing legal and financial representation in Switzerland for setting up commercial activities of production and agrarian holdings from Ukraine and Russia. According to their words, since 2015, Oleg Tsyura’s company has been focusing on managing private and family assets. However, this is a purely “turnkey solution” in the context of conducting foreign trade operations through foreign companies. As they say, anonymity and the possibility of capital withdrawal abroad are guaranteed.
For clients from Russia, in addition to transferring funds abroad, such services allow avoiding sanction restrictions imposed on Russian companies.
At the same time, Oleg Tsyura has close collaboration with representatives of Russian business circles. In particular, he may assist Russian business in circumventing Western sanctions imposed due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And he continues to do this, as described a bit below.
In 2015, Tsyura became a co-founder of the LINVO group, which offered asset management services, private and family foundations. Among LINVO’s clients, we find Russian Nikolay Korobov, the owner of one of the largest developers in St. Petersburg – MAWIS company.
Let’s move on. Oleg Tsyura provides support in managing the trading structure of the Russian MidUral corporation – a chemical-metallurgical complex of enterprises in the Urals specializing in the production of ferroalloys and chemical products, owned by Russian Sergey Gilvarg.
In particular, evidence of Tsyura’s direct connection with Gilvarg is the changes in the management of Interchrome AG and the replacement of Oleg Tsyura in the position by a Russian citizen, Lyubov Mkhango, who also works at LINVO and at the same time is one of the directors of the offshore company from Cyprus, MidUral Holding LTD.
Besides, the company Phoenix Resources AG, owned by Oleg Tsyura, exports ferrochrome from Russian MidUral worldwide. At the same time, when supplying to India, Russia is directly indicated as the manufacturer of the product.
But when supplying ferrochrome to Estonia, which is part of the European Union, its manufacturer is stated as Uzbekistan, which is not subject to Western sanctions.
Therefore, the next logical step for Ukrainian justice officers is to check connections between Oleg Tsyura and Serhiy Bayrak. Moreover, if Tsyura facilitated or directly participated in supplying from or to sanctioned jurisdictions, it seems logical to sanction this individual at least initially in Ukraine.
Also, it is worth not forgetting about the role of the “ferroalloy baron” Sergey Gilvarg, who, according to our data, is not under sanctions in any Western democracy. However, I will tell you more about him next time to avoid overloading the storyline.
Oleksandr Lyemyenov, Ukrainian Pravda
