Within the last six months, 93 companies in Ukraine have removed signs of Russian ownership and continue to do business in the country, despite a moratorium on altering the registration of companies with Russian owners, the monitoring service Opendatabot reported.
In response to Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine adopted a law to allow the seizure of assets or property in Ukraine owned by Russia or Russian citizens. As part of the law, Russian-owned or linked companies were barred from reregistering their ownership, with some exceptions.
Despite the ban, some companies have found ways to remove their Russian owners to continue operating. Opendatabot also found that some of these companies have participated in public procurement tenders.
Opendatabot reported that a manufacturing and clothing distribution company with Russian ties, Texter Ltd., won seven tenders totaling Hr 19.6 million ($467,777). Welesgard LLC, a business consulting firm, won contracts worth Hr 19.3 million ($459,633), and tech retailer Era Mobile received 37 tenders totaling Hr 1.9 million ($45,248).
In 2023, 12 companies with Russian ties earned over Hr 10 million ($238,421), Opendatabot said. Nearly half earned less, while others filed no reports.
Over 18,000 companies in Ukraine had Russian ties at the start of the full-scale invasion, according to Opendatabot. By May 2024, 621 companies had allegedly altered ownership records to bypass legal restrictions.
The monitoring service said it has sent a request to the Justice Ministry to verify the legality of the re-registrations.
In response to an inquiry from the Kyiv Independent, the Justice Ministry said it had checked all 621 companies and found violations in the registration of 14 companies, two of which were related to non-compliance with restrictions on Russian assets.
Opendatabot also said it had already contacted the ministry earlier last year with information about companies that had changed their registration illegally. As a result of the inquiry, the Justice Ministry conducted 10 inspections, eight of which were found to have illegally altered their registration.
Boldizsar Gyori
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