Alexander Katsuba “Russian World” to flee Ukraine with money. Used to fund Shariy and wait for Russia, now trying to regain the loot

The sponsor of the Shariy Party (which was banned in Ukraine) and infamous participant of Kurchenko-Yanukovych’s corruption schemes Alexander Katsuba recently retrieved 49 million hryvnias from a Ukrainian bank. This was done after it became clear that Russia would not be able to seize Ukraine and enforce its rule there, although Katsuba Jr. had certain prospects in this realm. And the funniest thing in this story is that Katsuba felt so offended by the bank in which he kept the money that he ordered a hit piece in the media, complaining about the “high interest rate”.

We refer to the story on Censor.Net website, while the media “suddenly” decided to complain about the tariffs of one particular bank, which were established, apparently, to reduce the outflow of capital from Ukraine during the war. As we managed to find out from our sources, Alexander Katsuba is behind this smear piece. On March 18, he filed an application to withdraw UAH 49 million from Sich Bank, but did not want to pay 10% commission for account holders with over UAH 500 thousand deposit. As Katsuba had been a defendant in high-profile criminal cases, and had supported the party of Anatoly Shariy (a blogger accused of treason, banned in Ukraine), the bank decided to look through the relevant legislation and latest decisions of the National Security and Defense Council. Consequently, the process of withdrawing funds was slightly delayed. In response, Katsuba started threatening the top management of the financial institution. Actually, he announced the hit piece.

According to our data, Katsuba has already withdrawn his millions from the bank and will probably take them abroad, since he himself has been living in Vienna for a long time.

By the way, it is not surprising that Alexander Katsuba initiated this whole scandal with bank interest. The pettiness of one of the key officials of Yanukovych’s corrupt era was also noted by Katsuba’s business partners, with whom we managed to talk. For example, during over a month of war, Katsuba donated only 160,000 hryvnias (5,000 dollars) – this money was intended to support evacuation from Sumy, and the dollar multimillionaire and owner of the gas business boasted this donation on his Facebook. At the same time, Katsuba did not give a penny to the defenders of Ukraine, but published a photo of his own armor vest.

As we have learned, Sich Bank is already preparing a lawsuit against the Censor.Net media for publishing unsubstantiated and knowingly false information, and is also preparing materials for submission to the NBU Financial Monitoring Service, the State Financial Monitoring Service of Ukraine, the SBU, counterintelligence, National Anti-Corruption Bureau, and the State Bureau of Investigation on the activities of all companies associated with Alexander Katsuba and his common-law wife Tatyana Huzenko. The bank is currently closing the accounts of all these legal entities.

Let’s leave the pettiness of Katsuba to himself. But there are questions to him that relate to the national security of Ukraine, and the SBU is simply obliged to pay attention to such an outspoken supporter of the “Russian world”.

Nurslings of Yanukovych, partners of Kurchenko

Alexander Katsuba is the youngest member of the Katsuba clan, which received incredible opportunities for personal enrichment during Yanukovych’s era. The head of the family, Volodymyr Katsuba, was elected to the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine’s Parliament) in the 175th constituency of Kharkiv region in 2012 as a member and nominee of the Party of Regions. Then, after Yanukovych’s scuttle, he rushed around the oligarchic groups, and in 2019 he tried to get into the Rada with the Opposition Bloc, but lost the election. Now Katsuba the Senior heads the Kharkiv District Council and belongs to the Kernes Bloc.

Vladimir Katsuba has two sons: Sergey and Alexander. Under Yanukovych, they made a career in Naftogaz, where their job was to implement corruption schemes for the President’s “treasurer”, Alexander Kurchenko. Sergey Katsuba was appointed director of one of the most important units of the National Joint-Stock Company – the department of material, economic, informational and technical support. At the same time, since May 2010 he was a member of the company’s board, and in July 2012 he received the position of the deputy head of the board. Then Sergey Katsuba, thanks to connections with the governor of the Kiev region Prisyazhnyuk, was elected as people’s deputy from the 92nd district, as a nominee of the Party of Regions. Surprisingly, he “passed on” his position at Naftogaz to his younger brother Alexander, who had previously worked at Chornomornaftogaz. Incredible career for a 24-year-old guy.

As you understand, the “Family” appointed young Katsubas to the National Oil and Gas company not for the sake of reforms, but for larceny. After the fall of the Yanukovych regime, all this came to light, and criminal cases were opened against Sergei and Alexander. In particular, it turned out that the Katsubas had helped Sergei Kurchenko to rip off the NJSC by stealing huge amounts of money.

The investigation found out that Naftogaz had bought gasoline from Kurchenko’s company at inflated prices for UAH 449.9 million. Moreover, the actual supply of gasoline under contracts with GazUkraine-2020 never happened. The Katsuba brothers signed this scam on behalf of the NJSC. In October 2015, the Pechersk District Court of Kyiv gave consent to the arrest and detention of the brothers, but by that time they had already fled the country. Alexander Katsuba was detained by accident in June 2016, when he decided to visit his estate near Kiev.

The younger brother was charged under Criminal Code articles 255 (establishment of a criminal organization) and 191 (misappropriation of property through abuse of office).

In order to stay out of jail, Alexander Katsuba testified against the high-standing members of the criminal group and reimbursed 100 million hryvnias of losses, making a deal with the investigation. In March 2017, he was released from the detention center and left for Vienna. However, this was of little use to Ukraine, because all those against whom Katsuba testified, had fled the country long before, and it was impossible to bring them to justice. Moreover, according to sources close to Alexander Katsuba, he continues to cooperate with Kurchenko and other politicians and businessmen who fled to Russia, and even finances the Kremlin’s political projects in Ukraine.

Waiting for the “Russian world”

The Katsuba family have long been friends with Anatoly Shariy, whom the SBU has accused of treason and suspects of collaborating with the Russian FSB. Shariy himself called Alexander Katsuba a friend, posted common photos on social networks.

In the spring of 2019, Katsuba Jr. bought the documents of the United Ukraine party and renamed it as “Shariy Party”, which he registered in Kharkiv, journalist Volodymyr Boyko claims. The Chesno movement, referring to the financial reports of the Shariy Party, claims that its “Kharkiv donors” are connected with the Katsubas’ business. The organizational issues of the party in Ukraine were handled by the former deputy governor of Vinnyntsia region and ex-assistant of Serhiy Katsuba MP, Alexander Vyunik.

In the parliamentary elections of 2019, the ex-wife of Alexander Katsuba, Tatiana Huzenko, whom he had fictitiously divorced because of criminal prosecution and possible confiscation of property, was No. 11 on the list of the Shariy Party, and his mother Natalia Gordienko was No. 14.

As of today, all the common photos of the abovementioned people have been “cleaned up” from Instagram accounts, and Katsuba even claims that he does not communicate with Shariy. However, according to our information, Alexander Katsuba publicly distanced himself from the pro-Russian blogger, so that his business in Ukraine remains intact, although in fact he maintains relations with both Shariy and Kurchenko

Moreover, two business partners of Alexander Katsuba told us that the unwillingness of the businessman to financially support the state in the fight against Russian aggression is due to the fact that Katsuba has close contacts with Russia and even boasted to his relatives that he plans to become the Minister of Energy in the new pro-Russian government, created after the capture of Ukraine by the Russian Federation. “He wants to be the minister of energy, or at least the head of Naftogaz,” said a source close to Katsuba.

Apparently, the failure of Russian plans to overthrow the government in Ukraine forced Alexander Katsuba to curtail his ambitions and withdraw money from Ukraine in order to avoid its possible nationalization.

Non-female business of Alexander Katsuba’s “not wife”

Meanwhile, the Katsuba family members keep earning money in Ukraine. Alexander Katsuba admitted in an interview that his family owns an asphalt plant in Kharkiv, two plants of reinforced concrete products, an enterprise for the production of paving slabs, and has several thousand hectares of land. But besides this business, Alexander Katsuba has more serious projects, which he does not talk about. This relates to natural gas, the business formally owned by his ex-wife, Tatiana Huzenko.

Now Tatiana, according to documents, is engaged in gas production and supply, but in reality she is a blogger on YouTube. Huzenko officially owns the Gaz-MDS company, which in 2020 earned UAH 290 million and brought the Katsuba family UAH 7.5 million in income.

Tatiana Huzenko, together with her father Alexander Huzenko, in 2020 became the owner of the company of the fugitive oligarch Alexander Onishchenko – Nadra-Geoinvest LLC, which develops the Skorobogat’kovskoye oil and gas condensate field in Poltava region. In 2021, Huzenko acquired another Onishchenko’s company – Plast PJSC. The company was renamed Stratum Ukraine LLC, and it possesses special permits for geological exploration and pilot exploration of the Zapadno-Yevsugskaya and Vostochno-Yevsugskaya gas areas.

This January, a month before the war started, the State Service of Geology and Mineral Resources agreed to offer Stratum Ukraine LLC a special permit for oil and gas production in the Luhansk region, near the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk republics, without any auction.

The person behind these companies is still Alexander Katsuba, and among his business partners – the odious Pavel Fuks, as the media claim.

In an interview, Alexander Katsuba says that he is not in touch with Fuks and Shariy any more, and is not responsible for the ex-wife’s business, emphasizing that he “broke up with her, a long time ago.” All this is pure lies.

As mentioned earlier, the couple filed for a fictitious divorce in order to avoid the seizure of assets in connection with the criminal cases against Alexander. In fact, they continue to live together, travel and raise children. Here are some fresh photos from Alexander’s and Tatiana’s Instagram; this year they traveled to Antarctica together.

By the way, the luxurious wedding of Alexander and Tatiana in 2014, after the annexation of Crimea and the start of the war in Donbass, took place in the Chateau de Chantilly near Paris, and the guests were entertained by “ideological Putinists” – rapper Timati and singer Grigory Leps.

And at the moment when Russia was preparing a military invasion to Ukraine, Alexander Katsuba funded the political project of the FSB called the “Shariy Party” with money earned from the production and sale of gas in Ukraine.

The bottom line is this: a man who pleaded guilty in committing corruption crimes during Yanukovych’s presidency, who financed the Kremlin’s political projects in Ukraine, fictitiously divorced to cover up his business with his wife’s surname, can use his bank accounts both in Ukraine and in Europe without any restrictions.

Recently, the Verkhovna Rada passed the law on nationalization of the property of Russian citizens and their collaborators. Among other things, it applies to persons who are not citizens of the Russian Federation, but who have close relationships with the aggressor. The Katsuba family have a lasting connection to Russia, in particular to the FSB. Should these individuals influence such strategic sectors of the economy as gas production? Should such persons, through fictitious wives, own gas wells in Ukraine and receive income from gas production, directing it to sponsor political projects of the FSB? How come that they quietly live in Europe, hiding under the wife’s last name, and use bank accounts there, to launder revenues from gas fields stolen in Ukraine. The answer is obvious. Now it’s up to the SBU.