Companies with Links to Russia and Belarus Continue to Open in Ukraine

Analysts of YouControl R&D center found out that since the beginning of the full-scale war, only 5% of 20,000 companies with a “Russian-Belarusian trace” have changed the composition of their beneficiaries. Namely, the representatives of the aggressor countries left the ownership structure. In addition, the researchers found 39 newly created companies, in the ownership structure of which there are persons associated with Russia and Belarus. Most of these legal entities were registered during the 2022 war year and belong to charity organisations.

At the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, YouControl created a list of active Ukrainian companies with “enemy trace.” It includes more than 20,000 active Ukrainian enterprises, among whose owners, founders, or ultimate beneficiaries there is at least one citizen or resident of the Russian Federation or the Republic of Belarus.

Over the past 16 months, only some of these companies have changed the composition of co-owners, namely the withdrawal of representatives of the aggressor countries – Russia and Belarus – from the structure.

Analysts managed to identify more than 1,000 such firms, which is slightly more than 5% of the total number of enterprises with links to Russia and Belarus. Almost 50% of these companies are registered in the city of Kyiv; another 6.5% are located in the Kyiv region. Almost 27% work in trade, and 14% – in the processing industry and real estate.

It was established during the research that the disappearance of representatives of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus from the structure of the owners of Ukrainian companies does not always mean the disappearance of ties with the aggressor countries. Some changes were probably aimed at hiding the “Russian-Belarusian trace.”

The most common methods of such pseudo-changes were:

• Change in data in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs regarding the country of citizenship or address of registration of participants/beneficiaries from Russia and Belarus to another. In particular, most often to Cyprus, Turkey, Israel, and Ukraine.
• Re-registration of the right of ownership for alleged relatives who have the citizenship of Ukraine or other countries, except the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus (coincidence of surnames, as well as patronymic, which coincides with the name of the previous participant).

Natalia Tolub