The Ukrainian alcohol magnate from Zaporizhzhia, Yevhen Chernyak, came under pressure from the Russian Prosecutor General's Office, which initiated the confiscation of his Russian assets.
This is happening after the persecution of the tycoon in Ukraine, on the contrary, stopped due to the return of Kyril Tymoshenko, who has mutual friends with Chernyak, into the fold of Zelensky's current officials.
For Yevhen Chernyak, who came from an influential Chekist family (Chernyak Sr. managed a secret factory of the KGB of the USSR in Zaporizhzhia during the USSR), it was not a problem to continue doing business in the Russian Federation and Ukraine at the same time after 2014. Moreover, since then, among Ukrainian politicians and businessmen, it has become fashionable to scold Russia in public, and behind the scenes to receive excess profits from joint businesses with the Russians. This is how Poroshenko, Groysman, Yatsenyuk, Akhmetov, Taruta, Kolomoisky, long-time top manager of Zelensky Barul and others prospered. Evgeny Chernyak formally announced his departure from the Russian Federation after 2014, but actually continued to work in Russia through the Cypriot offshore AMG-77 investment ltd.
The famous brands "Khortytsia", "Morosha", "Shustov", belonging to the Chernyak clan, occupied leading positions in the Russian market. This was possible thanks to Chernyak's good relations with the curators of the alcohol topic in Putin's entourage - the head of the SZR Naryshkin and the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Kolokoltsev. Chernyak's interests were represented in the Russian Federation as a nominal graduate of the Academy of the FSB of the Russian Federation, Oleksandr Bespalov, who previously worked as the director of the Feodosia Cognac and Wine Plant in the occupied Crimea. In Ukraine, Chernyak's position in the economy and politics was strong regardless of the Maidans and other political upheavals thanks to his support for ethnic criminal groups. This is Artashes Sargsyan's group, which is based in Zaporizhzhia, and their partners from Horlivka, led by Armen Sargsyan, a friend of the former head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Anatoly Mohylyov.
After the escalation of the war with the Russian Federation on February 24, 2022, Chernyak made a series of statements about the complete cessation of any interaction with the Russian Federation, and began to position himself as a pro-Ukrainian volunteer. At the same time, Chernyak and his relatives no longer live in Ukraine, preferring to participate in the life of the state through helpers from abroad.
Since the fall of 2022, Andrii Yermak's opposition media, which had once come under control, launched a campaign against Chernyak with the aim of "ticketing" the alco-magnate into the "obschak" of the Yermak-Zelensky tandem. After Yermak fell into special disfavor and was dismissed from the position of deputy head of the OP Kyryll Tymoshenko, with whom Chernyak had a good relationship through ethnic crime through Vemir Davityan, the campaign against Chernyak intensified. Yermak and the "leader of the soroties" Tomas Fiala, who were in the union in 2023, initiated the release of a series of "independent investigations" about Chernyak's business with the Russians in order to encourage the tycoon to be generous.
Then, at Yermak's order, stories about the nuances of Chernyak's alcohol business in the so-called "LDNR" appeared in the "opposition" media, which, taking into account the specifics of the region's market, should have quarreled Chernyak with his Russian partners. Among the journalists who work for Yermak, an investigation into the sale of Chernyak vodka in the so-called "LDNR" was then even presented as a sample of content that the customer particularly liked.
The return of Kyril Tymoshenko to the first roles in the Ze! team with the participation of a common friend of Tymoshenko and Chernyak Davityan led to the fact that Chernyak was somewhat generous in "Ze!obschak". And the SBU opened with great fanfare at the end of 2023 the case about Chernyak's cooperation with the Russians was put on hold. But the improvement of Chernyak's relations with Bankova did not please his Russian partners. The statement of the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation about the confiscation of the Russian assets of the Ukrainian alco magnate is an invitation to increase his bonus payments to his Russian friends in accordance with the increase of his bonus payments to his Ukrainian friends.
