investigation Roman Kravets is the administrator of the scandalously known Telegram channel "Joker" and a member of the "Servant of the People" party.
Kravets was born in 1994 in Kherson, graduated from Kherson Polytechnic College, majoring in process engineering. He currently lives in Kyiv. Little is known about his past, but there is information in the media that Roman Kravets was the head of the NGO "Dnipropetrovsk Regional Youth Council" and worked as deputy director for information technology and security at the company "SSL Consulting", owned by Hennadiy Korban's nephew, Ihor Birman.
Roman Kravets' success story begins in 2015. At that time, by-elections to the parliament were held in the 205th electoral district in Chernihiv, where there were two candidates — Serhiy Berezenko, a representative of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc Solidarity party, and Hennadiy Korban, who ran for the UKROP party. These elections were epic — with car blocking, clashes, and the distribution of food packages.
At this time, Roman Kravets appeared in Korban's entourage and began to help him with elections and information campaigns. He became a fairly close person for him. Before the change of power in 2019, Kravets already had certain connections among officials. In particular, he had warm relations with Andriy Bohdan, then a well-known lawyer, and later the head of the President's Office. As well as with Svitlana Kryukova, deputy editor-in-chief of the pro-Russian publication Strana.ua, which is under NSDC sanctions.
Bohdan became an important part of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s team and, in particular, was responsible for forming the lists of the Servant of the People party. Various sources confirmed to us that, when choosing people for the last few vacant places on the list, Bohdan simply looked through his phone book. So he stopped among others at Roman Kravets, whom he invited to the list under number 153. Kravets did not make it to the Verkhovna Rada.
In 2019, with the coming to power of the Servant of the People party, Andriy Bohdan, Gennady Korban, and Svitlana Kryukova, who had been actively communicating before, quarreled. The latter two founded the Telegram channel “Joker”. Roman Kravets was hired as an administrator and assistant. They posted pranks — they wrote to officials on behalf of other officials, and then leaked the correspondence to the network.
The media also published information that Roman Kravets, already in the image of the "Joker", also appeared on the pro-Russian channel "NewsOne", where his pranks were shown as exclusive materials. The host Vasyl Golovanov announced materials from Kravets, and the deputies of the "Servant of the People" commented on them on the air.
Kryukova and Korban, according to our sources, retained influence over the Telegram channel “Joker” until 2021. Gradually, Roman Kravets removed them from influencing the content — some of our sources described this story as “raiding.” Thus, Kravets became the sole owner of “Joker.” At this time, the channel began to turn into a mouthpiece for the OP.
For example, in 2021, the head of the Servant of the People faction, David Arakhamia, generally admitted that the author of "Joker" is a good person, whose name he does not know, but promised a bottle of whiskey when he gets to know him.
Upon learning of this, Hromadske journalists contacted Roman Kravets himself for comment. However, the blogger did not respond to calls or messages for a long time.
In the end, when the blogger invented the “legend” – he replied that he was “Joker”, but sold the channel in 2022. Who knows. The sale allegedly took place for $ 2 million in cryptocurrency. It was not possible to prove this in a few hours of correspondence. Although the evidence could be anything – from screenshots of deals or business negotiations to transactions.
You may ask why Roman called it 2022? It was this year that the Security Service of Ukraine recognized “Joker” as one of the pro-Kremlin channels that coordinates with Russian special services to conduct information and psychological operations. According to the data, “Joker” falsifies news and uses the content of Ukrainian special services to mask its activities. At one time, Joker was promoted by Shariy:
There was also a link to the Joker Channel in posts from mutual PR of pro-Russian Telegram channels:
It also turned out that 2019 Joker was proclaimed one of the best Telegram channels – the Kremlin propaganda mouthpiece “Nezygar”:
According to media reports, during the full-scale Russian invasion, Roman Kravets spent in Kherson, which was occupied by Russian troops at the time.
This fact raises serious doubts about his activities during that period. According to sources, there is a high probability that Kravets could have been recruited by Russian intelligence services. Let's not forget his pro-Russian information campaigns.
“Roman does not give specific answers to questions about the time of the occupation. He constantly repeats that he had no contact with the Russian military in Kherson and did not leave his house. He does not even talk about his daily routine during that period, repeating the same phrases. It also remains unknown how exactly he managed to leave occupied Kherson, which is quite suspicious, since few people managed to leave the city at that time. But Roman was “lucky,” says a source from his close circle to Hromadske.
After returning from the occupied territory, Roman Kravets resumed the activity of the “Joker” Telegram channel.
But let's get back to the Joker's activities in the present.
However, from that Hromadske investigation it became known that Mykhailo Podoliak, an advisor to the head of the Presidential Administration, told journalists that the President's Office does not control Telegram channels. However, some officials confirm that Kravets has contacts with representatives of the President's Office, in particular with David Arakhamia and several governors. According to one of the sources, Kravets constantly shows screenshots of personal correspondence, trying to emphasize his importance.
“Roman Kravets is a character not very gifted with intelligence who got into unofficial money through commissioned materials, which he was actively helped and is being helped by some current and former politicians and special services employees. Everyone has different motives: some are banal - so that they don’t get touched, others are purely mercantile. And the nightmare of business with the obvious goal of creating media problems and helping to solve them… This character clearly does not act independently.
I can say with confidence that Kravets calls Arahamia one of his closest friends. Several other governors. To understand who this character communicates with, he always takes screenshots of personal correspondence and shows them to others to increase his status. Which does not actually exist.
There is only a one and a half meter character, who will either be destroyed in the future due to broken legs, or he will anger everyone with whom he communicated and communicates. And everyone who posted and continues to post commissioned materials. From businessmen to employees of the Presidential Administration, even to the leadership of the Presidential Administration during the time of Yanukovych. Although this is already happening.
One of the former top officials confirmed that he maintained communication with Roman Kravets: “‘Joker’ wrote to me, I sometimes replied, but only on general topics.” Kravets later showed screenshots of correspondence with this official to other people to increase his status in their eyes.
At the same time, the speaker of the "Servant of the People" faction, Yulia Paliychuk, in a comment to hromadske regarding the alleged friendship between the head of the "Servant of the People" faction, David Arakhamia, and Roman Kravets, noted: "I don't know what Roman Kravets can tell. I don't know him personally. And to talk about his close relationship with someone... He can say anything. But I don't have information about the contacts of a person named Roman Kravets with my immediate superiors.".
Now, “Joker” publishes posts that justify the actions of the authorities, for example, regarding fortifications in the Kharkiv region. Journalists also accuse the Deputy Prosecutor General of corruption, and the channel retweets his justifications.
And although the answer to the question of whether Roman Kravets is a close friend of top Ukrainian officials remains open, it is worth looking at the fortune he received by supporting the OP.
During the full-scale invasion, Roman Kravets traveled abroad five times, staying there for more than two months in total. Data from the border service shows that there were no grounds for his departures. This may indicate a possible request from “higher spheres.” A source in the SBU noted that in such cases, the grounds for departure are often not entered into the database.
In 2024, Roman Kravets purchased a new car — a Lexus LX 600 — for $150,000. According to our calculations, over the past two years, the Joker has spent more than 8 million hryvnias on purchasing cars.
The owner of the Telegram channel lives in a one hundred square meter apartment in the elite residential complex "Chicago". Renting an apartment costs him at least 2 thousand dollars a month. The former representative of the President's Office Andriy Bohdan and the founder of Saga Development, developer Andriy Vavrish, also have apartments in this residential complex.
Journalists from Suspilny decided to track down Kravets: how he lives, who he meets, where he goes and what he drives. On May 1, we noticed a Lexus LX 600, registered to Roman Kravets, pulling into the parking lot of the Chicago residential complex. A Toyota Land Cruiser drives up to him — the cars form a motorcade.
Another day, Roman Kravets leaves the Chicago residential complex accompanied by at least four security guards. This level of protection is usually required for high-ranking officials or top managers of special services, that is, those whose activities may be under threat.
A source close to Roman Kravets told Hromadske that Kravets explains the presence of security guards as "a gift from Malyuk." Therefore, Hromadske sent inquiries to the SBU and the UGO to find out whether these bodies provide security to the owner of a Telegram channel that demands money from businesses.
Extortion of money
To understand how Kravets makes money with the help of “Joker”, you can consider the example of the company Uklon. The scheme is as follows - the channel publishes several negative posts about the company every day, until it turns to Kravets with the question: “How much does it cost to stop this?” The reason for the attack was that Uklon drivers worked during the curfew, as well as Uklon’s cooperation with the payment platform Fondy, which operates in the Russian Federation. From mid-February to today, Kravets has published 316 negative posts about Uklon. But the company does not react to the blogger’s terror.
Another exemplary case of Joker’s activities is the information campaign against the online casino “Kosmolot”. In January 2024, “Joker” began publishing numerous posts claiming that the Russian casino “Kosmolot” operates in Ukraine and that its owner, Sergey Tokarev, is a Russian citizen. Kravets also launched a campaign against bloggers promoting “Kosmolot” and criticized Ukrainian media outlets for deleting news stories with a statement by the Minister of Digitalization, Mykhailo Fedorov, that the Russian casino owner was trying to obtain Ukrainian citizenship. From January 28 to 30, “Joker” published 28 negative posts about “Kosmolot”.
“Friends, now you understand why everyone thinks that “Kosmolot” is a Ukrainian casino? They just buy everyone. They bought everyone. Your favorite patriotic bloggers are promoting “Kosmolot” because they cannot refuse the money they are paid from a Russian casino. Dirty Russian money,” “Joker” wrote on January 28, 2024.
The fact that the owner of “Kosmoloto”, Sergey Tokarev, is a citizen of the Russian Federation and has property in the aggressor country, is indeed confirmed. However, the goal of “Joker” was solely to get money by blackmailing the casino. When “Joker” achieved his goal, the rhetoric regarding “Kosmoloto” changed dramatically, and interest in the topic quickly disappeared.
Already on January 31, “Joker” wrote: “Representatives of “Kosmolot” contacted me, they did a good deed, asked me to highlight their position, that they are not so bad, now I will not hate them, but will advertise “Kosmolot”. And indeed, the casino advertising began.
Similarly, Joker “fought” against crypto fraudster Alexander Orlovsky, Roman Kravets posted negative posts until at one point Orlovsky paid for the removal of the posts. The grateful Joker even dedicated a post to this on his channel.
By the way, Joker does not hide the price for stopping black PR:
Kravets' actions in the Telegram channel "Joker" can be classified as ordinary extortion and racketeering. It will not be difficult for law enforcement agencies to identify the administrators of this channel, but Kravets is allowed to continue his actions in exchange for informational support for the authorities and law enforcement officers.
