RUSSIA RELIGION NEWS


Moscow church philanthropists finance Ukrainian rebels

SBU ACCUSES BUSINESSMAN AND CHURCH PATRON VIKTOR NUSENKIS OF FINANCING DONETSK MILITANTS

Religiia v Ukraine, 21 January 2015

 

The Security Service of Ukraine [Sluzhba Bezopasnosti Ukrainy—SBU] announced the discovery of a scheme for financing Donetsk fighters through the illegal export of coke from the enterprises of the Moscow-Donetsk billionaire Viktor Nusenkis, Religiia v Ukraine reports with a reference to Ukrainskaia Pravda.

 

"The latest batch of coke in the amount of 1,000 tons was seized by personnel of the security service in one of the seaports," the report of the Press Service of SBU says.

 

The coke is produced in two plants, the Makeevkoks and Yasinovskii coke-chemical factories, which are located on territory controlled by fighters of the Donetsk People's Republic.

 

"It is significant that all plants belong to Russian citizen Viktor Nusenkis, who is a member of Yanukovich's inner circle," the SBU recalled.

 

According to information of the service, these coke-chemical factories were among the first to be "reregistered" according to the regulations of the militants. "In order to provide freight services and customs clearance, participants in the transaction used a Mariupol company that is controlled by a defendant in a number of criminal proceedings," the SBU explained.

 

Investigators established that according to this scheme, during 2014 coke valued above 100 million hyrvnia was exported from territories occupied by terrorists. "From the illegally received proceeds, the criminals deposited quarterly one million hyrvnia in the so-called 'bank of DPR,'" the report says.

 

A criminal case was started by investigators of SBU on the charge of financing terrorist organizations.

 

As is known, late in 2013 Viktor Nusenkis' Donetskstal intended to take on concession the entire property complex of the Berdiansk seaport. Nusenkis himself is one of the ten richest people of Ukraine with a net worth of $1.507 billion. In Ukraine, the businessman is also known as a spiritual son of Donetsk Archimandrite Zosima and is one of the largest patrons of the RPTs and UPTs. However, Viktor Nusenkis quarreled with the UPTs back in 2011 and withdrew his support of this church as a sign of protest against the expansion of its autonomy.

 

In 2014 the SBU published evidence of support of terrorism in the Donbass by another patron of RPTs and member of the patriarchal Commission on Family Issues, Konstantin Malofeev. (tr. by PDS, posted 21 January 2015)


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