Companies in Ukraine secretly change ownership to Russian ties.
Ninety-three companies in Ukraine have removed signs that they are owned by Russians. This happened despite a law that says companies with Russian owners cannot change their registration. The monitoring service Opendatabot found this out.
The law was passed because of Russia‘s invasion of Ukraine. It said that Russian-owned or linked companies could not register new ownership, with some exceptions. But some companies still managed to remove their Russian ties and keep operating.
Some of these companies have even won government contracts, worth millions of dollars. For example, a company called Texter Ltd. won seven tenders for a total of 19.6 million hryvnia (Hr), which is about $467,777 USD. Another company, Welesgard LLC, won contracts worth Hr 19.3 million ($459,633).
Opendatabot said that in 2023, twelve companies with Russian ties earned more than Hr 10 million ($238,421). But nearly half of the companies it checked had less, and some did not report their earnings at all.
The monitoring service also found out that over 18,000 companies in Ukraine had Russian ties before the full-scale invasion. By May 2024, 621 of these companies had allegedly changed their ownership records to bypass legal restrictions.
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