Mykola Koretsky, the owner of one of Ukraine’s largest companies manufacturing public works machinery and a current member of the Poltava Regional Council, has not yet said goodbye to his business in Russia. He also continues providing services to the Russian military.
Owning a business in Russia does not affect Koretsky’s success in Ukraine. Rather the opposite – after the Russian invasion, his Ukrainian company “Alfateks” started receiving even more contracts for the supply of public works machinery public works machinery is special equipment used for cleaning and maintaining streets, transporting goods and performing other works .
Koretsky turns quite aggressive when asked about his business in Russia and insists that he simply fell prey to circumstances.
Koretsky’s Russian business
In October 2022, the Ukrainian government officially banned public procurement from companies with ties to Russia or Belarus. The ban applies to companies and entrepreneurs registered in Russia or Belarus, as well as companies whose beneficiaries are residents of these countries. However, there are entrepreneurs whose ties to the aggressor country are not so obvious, and they are not subject to this resolution.
Mykola Koretsky (photo by Poltava Regional Council)
One such businessman is Mykola Koretsky, 54, a current member of Poltava Regional Council and owner of one of the country’s largest manufacturers of public works equipment, “Alfateks”. This company systematically wins hundreds of millions of hryvnias in public procurement. At the same time, Koretsky still owns several companies in Russia. In addition, he owns a hotel near Moscow, and it’s frequented by Russian armored vehicle manufacturers.
According to Koretsky himself, his business began in the 1990s with the resale of KrAZ trucks made in Kremenchuk to Russia. Together with his partners, he was developing the KrAZ dealer network in Russia. Later he started selling trucks from the Belarusian MAZ plant using this network.
After 2014, Mykola Koretsky transformed his company, “Alfateks”, which had previously been a mere equipment dealer, into an engineering company producing public works special equipment, using both MAZ and other foreign manufacturers’ spare parts. immediately after the launch of its production, “Alfateks” started participating in public procurement for the supply of public works equipment.
However, Koretsky did not abandon his Russian assets – his companies there continued to operate after the annexation of Crimea and the seizure of part of Donbas in 2014, and continue to make profits now, after the full-scale Russian invasion. In his 2020 declaration of a regional council deputy the most recent income declaration published by Mykola Koretsky Koretsky did not hide his Russian companies or his real estate in Russia. All of these companies continue their operations.
In particular, we are talking about Mykola Koretsky’s companies, which were established in the 2000s as the main importers of KrAZ vehicles to Russia. For example, Koretsky is now the sole owner of “KrAZ-Rostov” company registered in Surgut, Tyumen Oblast. In 2022, the company made a net profit amounting to 6.4 million rubles (about 50 thousand dollars).
Koretsky’s companies are closely linked to local Russian firms. For example, the Ukrainian businessman owns the real estate rental company “Active-Plus” registered in the Russian city of Kemerovo. At one time, this company was in bankruptcy and had millions in debts. Its liabilities and debts were repaid by another Russian company, “Auto-Mash-Global”. This company used to be called “Auto-Maz-Global” and supplied automotive equipment, in particular to Mykola Koretsky’s Ukrainian company “VKP Alfateks”.
Koretsky also owns 80% of the company “KrAZ NN LLC” in Nizhny Novgorod. The system for tracking imports and exports between countries Import Genius shows that at the end of 2015, “KrAZ NN” imported equipment from Ukraine, but then stopped. In 2022, this company declared more than 8 million rubles in revenue ($56 thousand) and 1 million rubles in profit (about $8 thousand).
Mykola Koretsky also remains a co-founder of “RusKrAZ”, a company that has been importing vehicles from Ukraine since 2007. Back in 2017, this company traded with Poltava-based companies. In 2020, Koretsky officially transferred almost the entire share (99.9%) in the company to a Russian citizen Dmitry Stikhin, but did not fully withdraw from it. “RusKrAZ” continues to operate in the Russian automotive market, and in 2022 its profit amounted to 9.3 million rubles ($74.1 thousand).
Nowadays, RusKrAZ imports Chinese Shacman trucks instead of the Ukrainian ones. At the same time, Koretsky’s Alfateks is the exclusive distributor of these trucks in Ukraine.
In addition to trading, Mykola Koretsky has a business in the hotel industry. In 2006, Koretsky founded the “Rus” Hotel in the village of Seliatino, 30 km from Moscow, and hired a Russian, Aleksandr Laponov, to run it. The 65-room hotel is still in operation today: spending a night here costs between 2,740 and 3,900 rubles.
Hotel “Rus” in the village of Seliatino near Moscow (photo from the hotel’s website)
Interestingly, in April 2022, Aleksandr Laponov set up another “Hotel Rus” company at the hotel’s address. He is listed as the sole founder, without Koretsky. However, Koretsky’s older company has not yet been liquidated and even received 15.5 million rubles ($124,000) in revenue in 2022.
The village of Seliatino, where the “Rus” Hotel is located, is hardly a tourist attraction. The main clients here are not travelers or vacationers, but Russian military personnel and their relatives. This is due to the hotel’s convenient location near the home station of the military unit of the 60th Command and Control Brigade, 1st Guards Tank Army, Western Military District of the Russian Land Forces.
The hotel reviews show that the military, as well as representatives of “Uraltransmash” Ural Plant of Transport Engineering (Uraltransmash), a Russian plant that produces military equipment, including self-propelled artillery systems. Located in Yekaterinburg , which produces military equipment and ammunition, stay here quite often. And in 2017, this hotel won two tenders to accommodate the personnel of the “61st Armored Repair Plant” Joint Stock Company “61 Armored Repair Plant” is a Russian plant that manufactures military equipment and spare parts for it; it is under US and Ukrainian sanctions .
By the way, Mykola Koretsky’s hotel business is not limited to Russia. He also owns a 70-person recreation facility in Truskavets run by his wife Maryna.
Profits in Ukraine
Mykola Koretsky’s Ukrainian plant “Alfateks” is located in Kremenchuk, Poltava region. This plant is one of the leaders in the production of public works equipment in Ukraine. According to NGL.media estimates, after February 24, 2022, this company concluded deals worth almost UAH 900 million, ranking second among the largest successful manufacturers of public works equipment in Ukraine only Kyiv-based company “Budshliakhmash”, whose order portfolio exceeded one billion hryvnias, managed to get ahead of “Alfateks” .
Under these agreements, “PE VKP Alfateks” and another Koretsky’s company with a similar name, “Trade House Alfateks”, received more than UAH 500 million. These companies supply utilities mainly with garbage trucks, cranes, tankers, dump trucks, snow removal equipment, etc.
Back in 2018, “Alfateks” was buying components from the Russian company “TC Kommash-Graz”, whose main customer is the Russian Ministry of Defense. Since 2015, “Alfateks” has been a dealer of the Belarusian MAZ motor transport plant, but now the website offers no possibility to order vehicles from Belarus. Alfateks website states, that in addition to producing its own vehicles, the company is now an official dealer for several foreign companies: Socage, KLUBB France, Hidrokon, XCMG, Shacman, Dayun Group.
Utility companies from all over Ukraine order equipment from Koretsky, with the largest single order coming from the state-owned “Gas Transmission System Operator of Ukraine” in March 2023. The gas company ordered 15 French-made Klubb hydraulic lifts on the Toyota HILUX chassis for UAH 58.3 million from Koretsky.
Ievhen Buzykin, Head of Corporate Communications at “GTS Operator of Ukraine LLC”, told NGL.media that as of January 2024, the order had not yet been fulfilled and, accordingly, “Alfateks” had not received payment.
“The owner of this company filled out a standard form to assess the compliance of a potential counterparty and a letter of explanation regarding business activities in the Russian Federation. He stated that he did not have any business relations with the Russian Federation (the company’s activities were suspended), and that the persons who have a decisive influence on the company’s business activities are not citizens of the Russian Federation or Belarus,” Ievgen Buzykin told NGL.media in writing.
Another major buyer of equipment from Koretsky’s company, the Cherkasy Road Maintenance Department of the Cherkasy City Council, provided NGL.media with copies of the guarantee letters from “Alfateks” that the company had submitted for the tender. The documents state that the company is not subject to economic sanctions and other restrictions on Russian business in Ukraine.
Hryhoriy Zaichko, director of the Cherkasy Road Maintenance Department of the Cherkasy City Council, also told NGL.media that they checked “Alfateks” using the YouControl service and found no ties to Russia. This is surprising, though, because the company’s YouControl homepage indicates that it has possible ties to the aggressor country.
NGL.media managed to talk to Mykola Koretsky: he was rather emotional in his response to our question about his business in Russia.
“How can I do this? Why are you provoking me? If it bothers you, I’ll give you a power of attorney – go and close [the business],” he offered in a telephone conversation, refusing to answer the pertinent questions.
Later, Mykola Koretsky sent NGL.media a message, in which he briefly described the problems The text of Koretsky’s message has been edited to make it easier to understand he is facing with his Russian companies.
“Back in my days I was a KrAZ distributor in the CIS countries. That is why I opened more than 30 companies there to sell KrAZ trucks. This is a well-known story. And it won’t cause any sensation. The companies that remained open are not operating. They are involved in various lawsuits with their counterparties (someone did not pay us for the vehicles, somewhere the director ran away… the courts are ongoing). Since 2014, suing in Russia has become even more difficult… so cases are not closed… somehow. And since 2022, even the employees of my Russian companies hardly ever communicate with me, because they face prison for this. That’s the way it is… Amen, – wrote Koretsky The text of Koretsky’s message has been edited to make it easier to understand .
Closing a business in Russia is really difficult and requires significant expenses, lawyer Taras Seniv explained to NGL.media. Still, it is absolutely realistic. And it is not necessary to travel to Russia to do so.
“Theoretically, Ukrainian citizens and Ukrainian companies that own businesses in the Russian Federation have the opportunity to sell them. To do this, they need to certify a power of attorney for a person who will do this in the Russian Federation. The authorized person may be a Russian lawyer or any other person with Russian citizenship,” explained Taras Seniv.
According to the lawyer, another option to withdraw a business from Russia is to liquidate the company. “However, during liquidation, the tax service and other authorities conduct inspections, during which unreasonable penalties may be imposed. This can lead to the company’s bankruptcy and, as a result, the owner will not receive any property benefits,” says Taras Seniv.
NGL.media sent a request to the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine to get an official explanation of how Ukrainians can now close their businesses or withdraw from the founders of companies in Russia. However, in response, we received only the advice to “contact the competent authorities of the Russian Federation on the issue directly or through an authorized person”.
Who is Mykola Koretsky?
Mykola Koretsky, 54, is a sitting politician at the Poltava Regional Council from the Batkivshchyna party. He is an active UOC-MP supporter, as he emphasizes in his 2022 deputy report. Koretsky supports his affiliation by the fact that he even participated in the Synod of the UOC-MP in 2022. Koretsky also opposed the termination of land lease agreements with the UOC-MP by the Poltava Regional Council and initiated the council’s appeal to the parliament in support of this church.
Mykola Koretsky funded the construction of the UOC-MP church in the village of Pishchane near Kremenchuk. After the Russian invasion, the issue of transferring to the OCU became really pressing in this church, causing a conflict. Eventually, in September 2023, the parishioners held a meeting where they decided to move to the OCU, and the church was officially re-registered. However, later Koretsky took part in a meeting of Russian Orthodoxy supporters, who together with him called the decision to move to the OCU illegal and condemned it, despite of the fact this statement has no legal force.
Sports is Mykola Koretsky’s other passion, as he financially supports the local football club “Kremin” and the “Kremenchuk” hockey team.
Mykola Koretsky with his son Maksym at the memorial to the “Eternally Alive” in Kremenchuk (Facebook photo)
Mykola Koretsky is married, and together with his wife Maryna they are raising a 7-year-old daughter, Yelizaveta. Mykola Koretsky also has a 23-year-old son, Maksym, with whom he was photographed wearing hats with the Soviet star back in 2020. It is not known whether he and his son’s ideological preferences have changed since the Russian invasion, but Koretsky has not yet deleted this photo from Facebook.
The latest income declaration of the deputy Mykola Koretsky, available on the NACP website, concerns his property status in 2020. There, he declared his companies in Ukraine, Russia, millions of dollars in a Swiss bank, and loans from banks in the Marshall Islands and the Virgin Islands. Koretsky has not filed any recent declarations, so it is currently impossible to assess how his financial situation has changed over the years.
In the fall of 2023, Mykola Koretsky founded two charitable foundations in Kremenchuk: “Shliakh dobra ta pidtrymky” and “Podarovana nadia”.
***
It seems that Ukrainian businessmen who have been doing business in Russia for years or even decades can still make money from orders from Ukrainian state-owned enterprises or local governments without any problems. Mykola Koretsky is not the only Ukrainian entrepreneur who still has business in Russia, but his story shows, first, how close the business ties between the two countries at war still are and, second, how easy it is for such businessmen to work with public procurement and receive money from communities. At the same time, the effective legislation contains absolutely no prohibitions regarding these actions.
This journalistic investigation was conducted and published within the framework of the IRRP project “Support to Investigative Journalism” with the financial support of International Media Support (IMS)