Vyacheslav Yutkin, a businessman cooperating with the Russian special services, builds hotels in Lviv with Russian money and is friends with Mayor Sadov

The fact that in the early nineties of the last century, employees of the special services began to actively retrain as businessmen, is no secret to anyone.

The very specifics of the work provided great opportunities for the development of new areas of activity – the “security officers” knew many secrets of the newly-minted nouveaux riches, and there were connections with their colleagues not only on the territory of the former Soviet Union, but throughout the world.

Among these former “chekists” was Vladislav Yutkin, who is now actively working in Ukraine. He is best known for building hotels, but this is not his only business. According to the website youcontrol, he is involved in one way or another in the activities of 30 firms.

And it all started back in 1995, when (Vyacheslav Mikhailovich himself tells this) colleagues from Moscow approached him and offered him to head the NRB bank in Ukraine. According to Yutkin, the proposal was made to him by Artemy Lebedev, a native of the KGB and a Russian oligarch. All this happened at a time when Yutkin worked in the Security Service of Ukraine as deputy head of the information and analytical center of the SBU. Slightly aside from the outline of our narrative – but this only confirms the fact that the SBU was never, in fact, the “Security Service of Ukraine”, but, in fact, was and to a large extent still is a branch of the Russian FSB. And the majority of domestic businessmen have the closest connections with the Russian special services.

True, later friction arose with Lebedev – according to Yutkin, he “threw” him after Yutkin built the “More” complex in Crimea – allegedly contrary to Lebedev’s promises to transfer this complex to Yutkin’s possession, it turned out that the latter was not among the owners of the last name . Nevertheless, Artemy Lebedev, in his book Hunt for a Banker, called Vyacheslav Yutkin “the head of his projects in Ukraine.”

In addition, it is worth recalling that Yutkin at one time headed the “daughter” of the Russian “Sberbank” in Ukraine and “Prominvestbank” with Russian capital.

Unlike many, Yutkin does not hide the fact that he has worked and is working closely with Russian colleagues and on Russian money. As well as the fact that many of his colleagues in the service, people from the USSR State Security Committee, work with them.

All these facts, however, do not prevent him from continuing to do business in our country at the present time. And, it seems, domestic special services do not care at all.

Although, if you analyze the data of the resource youcontrol, it turns out that almost all the businesses in which Yutkin participates are on the sanctions lists of the domestic National Security and Defense Council and international partners of Ukraine:

Including the hotels that Yutkin has been actively building in recent years. He owns the Park-Hotel Kyiv in the capital, the Congress-Hotel Pushcha in Pushcha-Vodytsia, the Country Hotel Glebovka in Glebovka, Vyshgorodsky District, Kiev Region, and a hotel in the Carpathians. In Lviv, Yutkin owns BANKHOTEL, opened in 2018.

Another company, whose co-founder with a share of more than 85% in the authorized capital is Yutkin – Lemberg-Plaza Service LLC – is the customer for the reconstruction of a non-residential building with an outbuilding into a residential building in Lviv at the address: st. Bohdan Khmelnitsky, 157.

All these hotel projects, as you know, were very expensive. Where the money came from, Vyacheslav Yutkin himself does not particularly spread, but, for example, regarding BANKHOTEL, he stated that 60% of the amount of $ 20 million that was spent on its reconstruction and opening belongs to him personally. And the remaining 40% are loans from Taskombank and VTB Bank, which is also Russian. Incidentally, it is headed by a member of the supreme council of the United Russia party, Leonid Kostin, who is under US sanctions.

However, we repeat – Russian capital and connections with Russian special services, which Vyacheslav Mikhailovich does not advertise, but does not particularly hide, do not at all prevent him from doing business in Ukraine. Like the NSDC sanctions.

In addition, according to data from the state registers of the Russian Federation, Vyacheslav Yutkin remains a co-owner of hotels in the Crimea, and conducts business there according to the laws of the aggressor country. He owns the Morskaya Hotel together with General of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Alexander Lebedev and the Tavrichesky apart-hotel. Yutkin also controls the Slava Hotel in Alushta.

If you look at the enterprises owned by Yutkin, then their list will include at least three, the name of which contains the abbreviation “NRB”:

And if you look at the official biography of Artemy Lebedev, it turns out that until 2019 he was the owner of the National Reserve Bank, abbreviated as NRB. This company is located in Russia, in Moscow:

However, Yutkin does not hide the fact that NRB is involved in his business in Ukraine. But this, too, does not at all prevent Vyacheslav Mikhailovich from doing business in our country. What is particularly interesting in this context is his friendship with the mayor of Lviv, Andriy Sadov. What Yutkin himself has repeatedly stated. The fact of close relations with the leader of Samopomich is also confirmed by the fact that during last year’s elections the headquarters of this political force was located in Yutkin’s BANKHOTEL hotel. Moreover, this fact was by no means hidden, and Sadovoy himself is known for the fact that he likes to go to this hotel for lunch during his legal break. But neither the Russian money invested in the construction of the hotel, nor Yutkin’s close ties with the Russian secret services prevent Sadovoy from using the services of this hotel.

Vyacheslav Yutkin became especially active in Ukraine after the change of power. Prior to that, he was not a very public person. And then, suddenly, interviews with him began to appear in the press, where he talks about his past, work in the KGB, SBU, and his connections with Russian capital. And even quite frankly, as for an intelligence officer, of course, he talks about how he started a business in Ukraine with the help of Russian special services. Under the previous government, Yutkin was not exactly “pinched”, but he clearly felt discomfort. There were even some criminal cases regarding his enterprises. It was even possible to find a court ruling on the seizure of documents from the Park Hotel Kyiv belonging to him in 2018, carried out as part of criminal case No. 32018100080000005:

True, the criminal case, as always in Ukraine, eventually dissipated in space. This decision of the court was also the last in the framework of the investigation of this criminal case. Since then – silence. Although, as follows from the data of the Court Register, the case is not closed. They simply forgot about him.

Yes, and apparently, it was the usual showdown at a high level between businessmen who did not share something, because Yutkin’s structure was charged with a banal non-payment of taxes. But the fact that under Yutkin during the reign of Poroshenko the ground shook is obvious. This was indirectly confirmed by Yutkin himself, stating that “Poroshenko is involved in preventing competitors from entering the country.” True, this statement was not connected with the hotel, but with the decision of the country’s leadership not to allow Sberbank of Russia into Ukraine, when the latter was going to buy the Ukrainian branch of NRB, headed by Yutkin.

But time does not stand still. The government changed in the country two years ago, many, over whom clouds began to gather, breathed a sigh of relief – even a pathetic imitation of investigations into Russian agents and the expulsion of Russian capital from Ukraine has sunk into oblivion.

The new government is doing something incomprehensible at all, which gives the Russian Federation the broadest opportunities to restore its influence on all processes in Ukraine. Including big business, which Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Yutkin is engaged in in our country, using Russian money and connections with his colleagues in the KGB of the USSR and the FSB of the Russian Federation.