Masked Gunmen and a Stolen Toilet: How Russia Seized a Ukrainian City’s Businesses. Many of Melitopol’s companies have been taken over by Russian interests. Now some former owners are fighting back.
by RoninSolutions
Masked Gunmen and a Stolen Toilet: How Russia Seized a Ukrainian City’s Businesses. Many of Melitopol’s companies have been taken over by Russian interests. Now some former owners are fighting back.
by RoninSolutions
4 comments
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this is the kind of thing that gives “rule of law” a good name. it’s infuriating just reading about it. it’s not just theft. they’re funding their fucking war from the theft.
Pay wall…
Here it is. Cleaned up the best I could
Pt.1
KYIV, Ukraine—In occupied Ukraine, corporate mergers and acquisitions begin with a visit from masked gunmen.
Not long after Russia’s military took control of the Ukrainian city of Melitopol, balaclava-clad men arrived at the head office of one of its largest companies, beat its security guards and announced that the business was under new ownership.
Over the next few months, many other companies in this south-coast city would follow the same fate as Melitopolskaya Chereshnya, or Melitopol Cherry, one of Ukraine’s biggest fruit businesses. Now more than a year after many of those takeovers unfolded on the ground, these companies are re-emerging on corporate registers, under new Russian ownership. They are also producing again, including ammunition that is being sent to Russia.
The Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, is investigating the seizure of more than 300 businesses in the Melitopol area, according to agency briefing documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The SBU is probing, among other things, whether Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, and parts of its military have orchestrated some of these takeovers.
A road sign on the way to Melitopol, riddled with bullet holes.
The seized companies’ former owners, meanwhile, are launching their own campaigns to get their businesses back. They have filed a lawsuit in an international court against the new Russian owners and are calling old clients to stop them from buying from their former businesses
“Today, there is not a single enterprise left in the Melitopol region that was not in one way or another in cooperation with the enemy,” said Ivan Fedorov, the exiled mayor of the industrial and agricultural hub, just inland from the Sea of Azov.
Russia’s Defense Ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment. The new mayor of Melitopol and the new regional governor, both installed since the invasion, declined to comment.
Businesspeople say similar seizures have been repeated throughout occupied Ukraine, where Russia is also accused of stealing grain, timber and farmland. The moves help consolidate control of these territories by placing the big businesses into sympathetic hands, while also allowing Russians and their local allies to profit from the war
Melitopol fell to Russian forces in the days after Russia’s invasion in February last year.
Ukraine launched its long-awaited counteroffensive last month with probing attacks in the direction of Melitopol.
Melitopol’s exiled mayor, Ivan Fedorov, says violent takeovers have followed a similar playbook across the city.
If Ukrainian forces can break through to Melitopol, they could effectively cut off Russia’s land bridge to Crimea. The city sits on a major road and rail line, making it a useful logistics hub for whoever controls it.
Before the invasion, things had been going well for Melitopol Cherry. The company had doubled sales in recent years and had started a $50 million investment program, according to Karina Stanchevska
its chief financial officer.
“We were a 20-year-old company with big plans for the future,” said Stanchevska, who was heavily pregnant and in Kyiv at the time of the invasion.
That came to an abrupt halt at around 5 p.m. on March 27 last year, according to Pavlo Timofieiev, a lawyer for Melitopol Cherry, who was also in Kyiv at the time but has been collecting worker testimonials since the takeover. This retelling of what happened to the company is based on those and other accounts.
A group of armored vehicles arrived at the company’s offices, and five balaclava-clad gunmen got out. They had Russian accents and wore army uniforms without identifying markings. The soldiers attacked the company’s guards with their rifle butts before moving into offices and taking documents, according to the worker testimonials.
Melitopol Cherry had flourished before the war.
Melitopol Cherry’s Karina Stanchevska says the company had big plans for the future.
The men told staff that the company had been nationalized and had new Russian owners.
Violent takeovers followed a similar playbook across the city, said Fedorov, the exiled mayor.
“If the manager or owner did not agree, he was immediately taken prisoner,” said Fedorov.