A corruption tollgate for European companies: why the Ukrainian National Police has once again seized Fedoricsev’s assets

The scandal around the Energoatom case and the “Mindich recordings” – named after Timur Mindich, a close associate of Volodymyr Zelensky and a central figure in a major corruption affair in Ukraine’s energy sector involving 100 million dollars in kickbacks – has shown how the Ukrainian authorities have turned access to public contracts into a mechanism of extortion: to take part in tenders, companies are expected to pay a 10–15% “entrance fee”.

In this context, the new offensive against businessman Fedoricsev in Ukraine looks less like a pursuit of justice than a continuation of the same logic: law-enforcement bodies are using a criminal case as a lever of pressure on private actors and as a convenient tool for polishing their public image.

What happened: the National Police steps in where the High Anti-Corruption Court had already ruled

On 21 October 2025, the Pechersk District Court in Kyiv, acting at the request of the Main Investigation Department of the National Police, ordered the seizure of Fedoricsev’s shares in several companies, including 100% of TIS-Zerno and TIS-Mineral Fertilisers, as well as stakes in the TIS group and its affiliated entities. The move was justified by reference to an old case concerning the alleged misappropriation of grain belonging to the State Food and Grain Corporation of Ukraine (SFGCU), followed by money laundering.

The key point is this: after ten years of investigation, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) never managed to bring the case to a conclusion — no notice of suspicion was ever served on Fedoricsev, and not a single asset-freeze order against him was upheld by the courts despite some 60 attempts. The High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) overturned his arrest in absentia and rejected the investigators’ harshest requests, while the courts in Monaco refused to be instrumentalised once they had established that the underlying dispute was commercial rather than criminal in nature.

According to legal observers, NABU had in effect “thrown in the towel”: the investigation deadlines were running out and the HACC refused to extend them. It was precisely at this point that the National Police entered the case — an institution traditionally far more permeable to political instructions in Ukraine.

Who is Fedoricsev really – and why Ukraine insists on calling him a “Russian oligarch”

For years, Ukrainian media have referred to Fedoricsev as a “Russian oligarch” or “Russian businessman”, particularly in connection with the SFGCU case and the TIS group.

Yet official documents tell a very different story: as early as 2017, NABU’s own files described him as “a Hungarian citizen residing in Monaco”. He has never held Russian citizenship and left the USSR for Europe before its collapse — in 1989.

From a legal standpoint, he is therefore not “a Russian national fleeing justice”, but a Hungarian investor who has lived in Monaco for many years and who owns key infrastructure in the Ukrainian port of Yuzhny via TIS — one of the largest private investment companies on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast and the country’s leading private stevedoring operator.

The businessman and his representatives confirm that he has never had a Russian passport and that the phrase “of Russian origin” is a political label — a convenient rhetorical tool in wartime to exert pressure, apply blackmail and single out entrepreneurs.

The “Mindich recordings” in the background: when the state turns into the extortionist

The Energoatom case and the “Mindich recordings” matter not in isolation but because they reveal how the state apparatus operates in its dealings with business.

NABU and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) publicly described a “toll system”: to win a contract with Energoatom, suppliers allegedly had to pay a 10–15% commission via intermediaries linked to businessman Timur Mindich’s circle and to senior officials, including former energy minister and current justice minister Herman Halushchenko.

The recordings (“the Mindich tapes”) illustrate a basic principle: the state does not merely set the rules of the game — it puts up a tollgate and demands payment for the right to take part in tenders. Despite raids and public scandal, Energoatom’s leadership has faced no real consequences, and none of its key managers has been removed.

This is a crucial element in the Fedoricsev case: if the authorities behaved like extortionists in the energy sector, why should anyone believe that, in the port sector, they have suddenly become a model of fairness and due process?

Ten years of NABU investigations and a sharp rebuke from the High Anti-Corruption Court

The SFGCU–TIS case has become a kind of “never-ending series” for NABU: since 2017, the bureau has repeatedly placed Fedoricsev on its wanted list and obtained freezes on assets belonging to TIS-Zerno and TIS-Mineral Fertilisers; Monaco has rejected the Ukrainian requests on the grounds that the matter is a commercial dispute; the HACC at first cooperated and then annulled the arrest in absentia and struck down the toughest measures.

Ultimately, HACC judges found no legal basis for maintaining the asset seizures or for prolonging the investigation, thereby effectively acknowledging that the accusations against Fedoricsev lacked solid foundation. Yet suddenly the National Police stepped in, securing fresh seizure orders from the Pechersk District Court — a Kyiv court notorious for controversial rulings.

In reality, this amounts to an admission: in ten years, the specialist anti-corruption body has been unable to build a case that would stand up in a specialised court. Instead of closing the file or reclassifying it as a civil-commercial dispute, the system has invented a new level of pressure — via the National Police and the traditional “Pechersk justice”.

In other words, having lost in an independent court, law-enforcement bodies are trying to resolve the issue through a more compliant forum. For businesses, the message is clear: if an independent court does not endorse the investigators’ version of events, they will change the court, not the strategy.

New seizures as an instrument of blackmail

The recent decisions by the Pechersk District Court are not the beginning of an investigation but a new twist of the screw. Freezing equity rights in strategic assets that are crucial to Ukraine’s export logistics paralyses managerial decision-making; it raises political risk for any investor associated with TIS and the port of Yuzhny; and it turns the criminal case into a bargaining chip — “cede the asset or live under the constant threat of further seizures and a request for arrest”.

In principle, these decisions can be appealed. But in wartime conditions and with overloaded courts, such remedies often remain theoretical: by the time the appeals are heard, the asset is already blocked, transactions have collapsed, banks are nervous and the owner’s public reputation has been damaged long before any judgment on the merits. One of the Pechersk court’s rulings — ordering the detention of Fedoricsev and, extraordinarily, denying him the right to appeal — is unprecedented in European case law. It calls to mind Soviet-era judicial practice.

These parallels with pre-determined, Gulag-era justice become even starker when one notes that information announcing the imminent seizure was published several days before the court’s official decision.

A systemic problem: from Energoatom to TIS 

When all the elements are put together, the operating logic of Ukraine’s repressive machinery becomes clear:

            1.         In the energy sector, the “Mindich recordings” expose a scheme in which access to Energoatom tenders is monetised through kickbacks. Public managers act as monopoly extortionists.

            2.         In maritime logistics, NABU’s long-running investigation targeting the TIS investor collapses under scrutiny by the HACC and the Monaco courts — and instead of acknowledging mistakes and rebuilding the legal case, the authorities shift the matter to the National Police, which then secures asset freezes in the Pechersk District Court that had been refused by independent judicial bodies.

            3.         In other high-profile cases involving pressure on businesses, the same logic persists: law-enforcement agencies use criminal procedure as a tool of negotiation and control, rather than as a mechanism of impartial justice. Ukraine’s Prosecutor General has acknowledged that more than 20,000 criminal proceedings targeting businesses are currently open — three times more than previously reported — and that all of them need to be reviewed.

For companies, the conclusion is straightforward: in Ukraine, a criminal case has become part of the power infrastructure for targeting strategic assets, rather than the ultimate instrument for upholding the rule of law.

What this means for Ukraine and its investors

The Fedoricsev case is not about sympathy for a particular businessman, nor is it a mere contractual dispute over the SFGCU portfolio. It is a test of whether the Ukrainian state is capable of distinguishing between justice and economic predation dressed up as anti-corruption.

In such a configuration, the primary objective does not appear to be restoring justice, but rather exerting pressure and expropriating assets under the banners of “fighting corruption” and “tracing Russian influence” — even when the person concerned is a European citizen who has been investing in Ukrainian infrastructure for decades.

If Ukraine genuinely wishes to remain integrated into the global economy and not become a closed market reserved for insiders, an honest discussion of such cases — from the “Mindich recordings” to the TIS asset seizures — is essential. And the first step is clear: political leaders and law-enforcement agencies must not seek to replace the market, the courts and investors all at once, or to circumvent them in pursuit of private interests.