Rosoboronexport inherited in London

Foreigners attributed to "Rostec" Sergei Chemezov a billion pound store in London?
24.06.2020
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Four hundred thousand documents from the Bahamas corporate registry were publicly available. Information is available about citizens of more than a hundred countries that have decided to use these islands in the Caribbean as a place to register their firms. Among them flashed the names associated with Rostec. What is this - a mistake by architects of schemes, dexterity of foreign spies, or another black PR campaign against our country?

The leak of this information array has been known for a long time, and some data from it was published on the specialized OCCRP resource. But only the organization with the name Distributed Denial of Secrets, in short - DDoS, decided to publish full information. DDoS takes a radical stance on classified data compared to the OCCRP community of investigative reporters, who posted most of the disclosures based on leaks from registrars from various offshore jurisdictions.

Among the published documents were materials from Real Estate Holding Ltd, the founders of which called a group of "Odessa Logistics" - specialists who allegedly deliver weapons to different parts of the globe. For example, the names known in the professional community are Boris Kogan, Boris Kolesnichenko, Yuri Makhlaychuk, Igor and Alexander Urbansky, as well as a woman by the name of Bogdan.

But now on this list we are interested in Boris Kogan. And not even so much because in Russia links to almost all Ukrainian sites are blocked, because you can still get acquainted with these venerable businessmen from a foreign IP.

First of all, Boris Kogan is curious because of his connection with Russian arms exports. The fact is that this can cast a shadow on organizations that carry out the most important state instructions. The arms export monopoly belongs to the Russian corporation Rosvooruzhenie, which is included in the perimeter of Rostec’s business.

The evolution of a taxi driver from Odessa

Boris Kogan loved Odessa, and lived there despite the fact that he had American citizenship. He also loved the sea - so much so that he acquired an ocean yacht Lady K, the previous owner of which was Boris Berezovsky.

Love for Odessa and the sea had a quite reasonable explanation for Boris Kogan - he was a top-class professional in the field of shipping. He was involved in the delivery of military cargo. Apparently, the geography of deliveries of goods of national importance was extremely large, and related organizations were credited with deliveries to Syria, China and other countries.

Boris Kogan joined the league of serious entrepreneurs from the position of an ordinary taxi driver. True, he worked as a taxi driver in Odessa in Soviet times. In which, as you know, there were no "just taxi drivers." Each of the local drivers in fact was an individual business that flourishes in the harsh conditions of the Soviet system. So in the miraculous transformation of Boris Kogan, the miracle turned out to be quite ordinary, coinciding with the onset of an era of change. The only difference is that the object of transport and trade operations, it seems, have become a variety of weapons and equipment.


Almost a family business

The re-qualification of Boris Kogan was due to the establishment of close ties with RT-Logistics (also included in the perimeter of the Rostec state corporation's business).

This story began around 2007, and coincided with the appointment of Anatoly Isaykin, the trustee of Sergei Chemezov, as the head of Rosoboronexport.

In subsequent publications, Boris Kogan was often called almost the co-owner of RT-Logistics. In the documents of the company itself, he appeared as an affiliate as a member of the board of directors. But the company’s shares were not reflected in him. The latest public data on the composition of shareholders of RT-Logistics JSC is dated September 2016. At that moment, Rostech owned a majority stake (51%), the remaining 49% belonged to TransHolding Logistics LLC (TXL), a very strange company with the status of a microenterprise.

Created in 2010, TransHolding Logistics LLC currently has a shorter name - THL LLC. It has been considered a microenterprise since 2016 on the basis that its average headcount is 1 (one) people.

One is Vera Matveeva, who has been managing this company since March 26, 2013. And since December 19, 2015, the company itself has been solely owned by Elena Nikolaevna Khudyakova, it owns 100% of TransHolding Logistics. But now the name has been reduced to a short version - “THL”. Elena Nikolaevna is participating in yet another society - with a very similar name - “TKhN” (full version - “Transholding Real Estate”). She owns 1% of the shares in OOO TKhN, the remaining 99% is held by ... TKHL. There is reason to believe that we are talking about the notorious "Russian nesting doll" - a favorite form of organizing domestic business. Even if the state-owned corporation is a system element of such an organization. Why did Rostec need a bundle with TCS-TXN? Perhaps the task was to hide some operations from enemies. However, Elena Khudyakova appeared in the materials dedicated to the personal assets of the environment of the head of Rostec.

This microcompany with a family bias, however, has become a full-fledged partner of the state corporation. Moreover, somewhere in its depths the interest of the Odessa logist Boris Semenovich Kogan was buried. The news feed posted on the Rostec website has a unique message that talks about the new corporate governance system, the essence of which was to attract independent directors from among recognized specialists.


In the same news, the composition of the directors of RT-Logistics JSC was mentioned. In addition to the owner of TransHolding Logistics LLC Elena Khudyakova, it included Vladimir Litvin, Sergey Chesnyak, Zhanna Skorina and ... Boris Kogan. Candidates for the board of directors were discussed in June 2014 - the war in Ukraine was in full swing, but for some reason, a logistics expert from Odessa was especially expensive for Rostec.

Odessa network

The reasons for this importance are disclosed in a study called the Odessa network. It was prepared by several people from C4ADS - the Center for Modern Defense, which specialize in collecting and analyzing open data. In it, the authors tried to show that the port of Oktyabrsk became the main window for Rosoboronexport to the outside world. Built after the war near the port of Nikolaev, the weapons port of Oktyabrsk back in Soviet times carried out specific tasks for the rapid transfer of weapons to different parts of the planet. From here, for example, missiles went to Cuba, which caused the Caribbean crisis. The appearance on the map of independent Ukraine did not change the situation much - the port retained its purpose, and access to it was provided by the owner Vadim Novinsky, a Russian citizen who became the Ukrainian giant and the owner of the port.

A report published in September 2013 highlighted a multitude of armament deliveries to hot spots. The authors of the report consider deliveries to Iran and belligerent Syria especially important.

However, a couple of months after the publication of the Odessa network, the streets of Kiev were on fire, which then captured Odessa itself. The change of power and the establishment of external control over Ukraine greatly changed the whole situation in exports from Oktyabrsk. In 2016, the port was renamed to Olbia, and began to turn into a point of departure of agricultural goods. In January 2020, Olbia was given a concession to the Qatari Qterminals corporation for 35 years, which is unlikely to risk transporting dangerous goods. Boris Semenovich Kogan himself did not find this transformation: in October 2017, he suddenly died.

And RT-Logistics tried to enter the port of Sevastopol in order to (probably) turn it into the “new Oktyabrsk”.

Rosoboronexport in London

Secret communications and contacts of Rosoboronexport are not fully understood. But even those tracks that are more or less open cannot but cause real amazement.

Recall that in November 2007, the company (first in the form of a federal state unitary enterprise, since 2011 - in the form of a public company) was led by Anatoly Isaikin. He left Rostec in December 2016.

The departure of Anatoly Isaikin from the position of head of the arms monopoly followed the registration in London of a corporation with the "talking" name JSC Rosoboronexport LTD.

It was established on July 4, 2016, 100% of the shares belonged to Rostec Corporation. What is it, inaccurate cover or deliberate provocation?

As the legal address, this corporation indicated house 24 on Usacheva Street in Moscow. Now at this address there is an additional office of Novikombank - the settlement center of the Rostec empire. In July 2016, Rostec became the sole owner of Novikombank, which by that time had already appeared on the US Treasury sanction lists.

The name Anatoly Isaykin with a contact address in London is among the directors of JSC Rosoboronexport LTD. According to the register of British firms, he continues to hold this post today. And Rostec still owns all the shares of this company.

In addition to Isaikin, the British JSC Rosoboronexport LTD had seven more directors; the names Ivan Goncharenko, Sergey Goreslavsky, Boris Kalenov, Andrey Kondratiev, Sergey Ladygin, Igor Sevastyanov and Vadim Vostokov appeared on this list.

These names (in Cyrillic transcription, of course) are people from among the leaders of defense exports. With one exception. In July 2016, Rosoboronexport regretfully reported that the Deputy General Director of JSC Rosoboronexport Vadim Yuryevich Vostokov suddenly died at the age of 55.

The name of Vadim Vostokov also appeared in another leak of documents: in March 2014, hackers who ranked themselves as Anonymous movement posted on the network the correspondence of Rosoboronexport employees with the Indian Embassy in Moscow and a number of Indian defense companies. Among the documents there were materials signed by Goncharenko and Vostokov. In July 2019, JSC Rosoboronexport LTD switched to the so-called hibernation mode, maintaining in this mode one billion pounds in the form of equity (10 million shares for one hundred pounds).

All of them belong to Rostec. It looks like a safe that was invented by a state corporation in the United Kingdom, literally under the nose of those who are responsible for implementing the sanctions. Why did foreigners manage to identify the connections? Was this design built for government or personal use? We will not know the answer to some questions soon.