investigation , Roman Kravets is the administrator of the notorious Joker Telegram channel and a member of the Servant of the People party.
Kravets was born in 1994 in Kherson, received his education at the Kherson Polytechnic College, specialty — technologist. 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 the deputy director of information technologies and security at the company "SSL Consulting", owned by Gennady Korban's nephew, Igor Birman.
The success story of Roman Kravets 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 - representative of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc Solidarity party, Serhii Berezenko, and Gennadiy Korban, who ran for the UKROP party. This election was epic, with car blocking, collisions and distribution of food parcels.
At this time, Roman Kravets appeared in Korban's circle and began to help him with elections and information campaigns. He became quite a close person for him. Before the change of power in 2019, Kravets already had certain connections among officials. In particular, he had a warm relationship with Andriy Bohdan, then a well-known lawyer, and later the head of the President's Office. And also with Svitlana Kryukova, deputy editor-in-chief of the pro-Russian publication "Strana.ua", which is under the sanctions of the National Security Council.
Bohdan became an important part of Volodymyr Zelenskyi's team and, in particular, was responsible for forming the lists of the "Servant of the People" party. Various sources have confirmed to us that Bohdan was simply looking through his phone book when selecting people for the last few vacancies on the list. So he settled on Roman Kravets, among others, whom he invited to the list under number 153. Kravets did not enter the Verkhovna Rada.
In 2019, when "Servants of the People" came to power, Andriy Bohdan, Gennadiy Korban and Svitlana Kryukova, who had been actively communicating before that, quarreled. The latter two founded the "Joker" Telegram channel. Roman Kravets was hired as an administrator and assistant. They played pranks - wrote to officials on behalf of other officials, and then leaked the correspondence to the network.
The mass media also published information that Roman Kravets, already in the image of "Joker", also appeared on the pro-Russian channel "NewsOne", where his pranks were shown as exclusive materials. Host Vasyl Golovanov announced materials from Kravets, and "Servant of the People" deputies commented on them on air.
Kryukova and Korban, according to our sources, maintained their influence on the Telegram channel "Joker" until 2021. Roman Kravets gradually removed them from influencing the content — some of our sources described this story as "raiding." So Kravets became the sole owner of "Joker". At this time, the channel began to turn into a mouthpiece of the OP.
For example, in 2021, the head of the "Servant of the People" faction, David Arahamia, generally admitted that the author of "Joker" is a good person, whose name he does not know, but he promised a bottle of whiskey when he met.
Having learned about this, Hromadskyi journalists turned to Roman Kravets himself for a comment. However, the blogger did not answer calls or messages for a long time.
In the end, when the blogger invented the "legend", he replied that he was "Joker", but the channel sold in 2022. To whom - he does not know. 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 ask why Roman named 2022? Just this year, 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 Sharyi:
There was also a link to the Joker Channel in posts from mutual PR of pro-Russian Telegram channels:
It also turned out that in 2019, Joker was declared one of the best telegram channels by the Kremlin’s propaganda mouthpiece Nezygar:
According to the mass media, during the full-scale invasion of Russia, Roman Kravets spent in Kherson, which at that time was occupied by Russian troops.
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 the Russian special services. Let's not forget his pro-Russian information campaigns.
"Roman does not give concrete 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 home. 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 Hromadskyi's source from his close circle.
After returning from the occupied territory, Roman Kravets resumed the activities of the "Joker" telegram channel.
But let's return to the Joker's activities in the present.
Nevertheless, from that investigation by Hromadsky, it became known that Mykhailo Podolyak, the adviser to the OP chairman, 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 Arahamia 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 who is not very gifted with intelligence, who got into unofficial money through commissioned materials, for which he was actively helped and helped by some current and former politicians and employees of the special services. Everyone's motives are different: some have banal reasons - so as not to touch them, others are purely mercantile. And nightmare business with the obvious purpose of creating media problems and helping to solve them... This character is clearly not acting on his own.
I can say with confidence that Kravets calls Arahamia one of his closest friends. A few more governors. To understand with whom this character communicates, 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 in the future will either be destroyed due to broken legs, or he will anger everyone with whom he communicated and communicates. And everyone who posted and continues to post custom materials. From businessmen to OP employees, even to the leadership of AP during Yanukovych's time. Although it 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, Yuliya Paliychuk, in a hromadske comment 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 am not personally familiar with him. And talking about his close relationship with someone... He can say anything. But I do not have information about contacts of a person named Roman Kravets with my direct management."
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 broadcasts his justification.
And although the answer to the question of whether Roman Kravets is a close friend of the top officials of Ukraine remains open, it is worth looking at what fortune he received by supporting the OP.
traveled abroad five times Data from the border service show that there were no grounds for his departure. 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 bought a new car — a Lexus LX 600 — for $150,000. According to our calculations, over the past two years, "Joker" has spent more than 8 million hryvnias on the purchase of cars.
The owner of the Telegram channel lives in an apartment with an area of one hundred square meters in the elite residential complex "Chicago". Renting an apartment costs him at least 2,000 dollars a month. Ex-representative of the President's Office Andriy Bohdan and founder of Saga Development, developer Andriy Vavrish have apartments in this residential complex.
The journalists of Suspilny decided to track Kravets: how he lives, who he meets, where he goes and what he drives. On May 1, we noticed how a Lexus LX 600, registered to Roman Kravets, pulls into the parking lot of the "Chicago" residential complex. A Toyota Land Cruiser drives up to him — the cars form a motorcade.
On another day, Roman Kravets leaves the "Chicago" residential complex accompanied by at least four guards. Usually, this level of protection is needed by high-ranking officials or top managers of special services, that is, those whose activities may be at risk.
A source close to Roman Kravets said in an interview with hromadske that Kravets explains the presence of security as "a gift from the Kid". Therefore, hromadske sent inquiries to the SBU and UGO to find out whether these bodies provide protection to the owner of the Telegram channel, who demands money from the business.
Demanding 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 it?" The reason for the attack was that Uklon drivers worked during the curfew, as well as Uklon's cooperation with the Fondy payment platform, which operates in the Russian Federation. From mid-February to today, Kravets has published 316 negative posts about Uklon. But the company does not respond to the blogger's terror.
Also, an exemplary case of the Joker's activity is the information company against the online casino "Kosmolot". In January 2024, "Joker" began to publish numerous posts, claiming that the Russian casino "Kosmolot" operates in Ukraine, and its owner Serhiy Tokarev is a citizen of Russia. Kravets also launched a campaign against bloggers promoting Kosmolot and criticized Ukrainian media outlets that deleted news reports from 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 "Cosmolot".
"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 can't give up the money they're being paid by a Russian casino. Dirty Russian money," wrote "Joker" on January 28, 2024.
The fact that the owner of "Kosmolot" Serhii Tokarev is a citizen of the Russian Federation and owns property in the aggressor country is indeed confirmed. However, the Joker's goal was solely to get money by blackmailing the casino. When "Joker" achieved its goal, the rhetoric about "Cosmolot" changed dramatically, and interest in the topic quickly disappeared.
Already on January 31, "Joker" wrote: "I was contacted by representatives of "Kosmolot", they did a good job, asked to highlight their position, that they are not so bad, now I will not hate them, but will advertise "Kosmolot". And casino advertising really began.
In the same way, Joker "fought" against the crypto-fraudster Oleksandr Orlovsky, Roman Kravets posted negative posts until at one point Orlovsky paid for the removal of the posts. Grateful Joker even dedicated a post to this on his channel.
By the way, Joker does not hide the cost of stopping black PR:
Kravets' actions in the "Joker" Telegram channel 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 Kravts is allowed to continue his actions in exchange for informational support of the authorities and law enforcement officers.
