Unknown Persons Tried to Disrupt Screening of Investigative Film on Zelensky's Offshore Holdings: What the Film Is About and Details of the Disruption Attempt

An unknown person called an official of the Kyiv City State Administration and, in an attempt to disrupt the film screening, introduced himself as an SBU employee.

Journalists at Slidstvo.Info prepared the investigative film “Offshore 95” about the offshore business of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his ties to oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky.

Notably, right before the film was to be shown at the Malaya Opera theater in Kyiv, an unknown person who introduced himself over the phone as an SBU employee almost disrupted the event.

We explain what is known about the attempt to disrupt the screening and what the journalists said in the film.

Attempt to Disrupt

As Slidstvo.Info editor-in-chief Anna Babynets reported on Facebook, just a few hours before the screening of the film “Offshore 95,” the director of the Malaya Opera theater canceled the screening.

According to Babynets, he initially simply stated that the opera would not show a film about the president.

Later he wrote that they supposedly “have no electricity and there is renovation going on at all.” The journalist went to Malaya Opera and confirmed that there was electricity and no renovation.

Anna Babynets
Editor-in-chief, Slidstvo.Info

However, posters for our film were removed from the premises, and staff were told it was a short day, as the opera closes at 17:00. Alexei told me over the phone that he knows nothing about our film and hung up. We have an agreement, and the venue is paid for. The premiere is five hours away, and nearly 250 people are registered. Everything should happen today at 19:00

Later it became known that the screening was under threat of disruption after a call to the Kyiv City State Administration from a person who introduced himself as an SBU employee and threatened “problems if the screening still takes place.”

At first the journalist searched for a new venue for the screening, but after some time the theater management “changed its mind” and agreed to host the screening.

SBU Reaction

The SBU denies that its employees were involved in pressuring Kyiv City State Administration staff over the ban on the film screening.

The SBU emphasized that it supports a plurality of opinions and freedom of speech, but considers it unacceptable “when they are manipulated for personal interests, undermining and discrediting the state and its institutions.”

“Offshore 95”

In their investigation, the journalists partially confirmed that Zelensky's offshore companies received $40 million from Kolomoisky starting in 2012.

The Pandora Papers, a new leak of documents from 14 firms that registered and serviced offshore companies, partially confirmed the scheme of transferring funds from structures of oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky to offshore companies of Volodymyr Zelensky and his associates.

In particular, the journalists managed to identify the ultimate beneficial owners of the offshore companies that could have received the money.  These funds could have been part of a story about the withdrawal and laundering of money from PrivatBank. 

As the investigation states, more than 600 journalists from around the world spent a year examining 11.9 million offshore documents that became public after a large-scale leak. The project was named the Pandora Papers.

While working on the project, the journalists at Slidstvo.Info found confirmation of information that was published during the presidential race in spring 2019. 

Namely, the scheme by which Zelensky's offshore companies and his team supposedly received $40 million since 2012 from companies linked to oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky. This took place during the period when the studio Kvartal 95 began cooperating with Kolomoisky's TV channel 1+1.

Sources at Slidstvo.Info confirmed the reliability of the information provided in the Pandora Papers documents and in the scheme.

The documents obtained by the journalists confirm that in 2012 the “Kvartal people” registered more than a dozen firms in the British Virgin Islands, Belize and Cyprus. 

At the heart of the network was the previously unknown firm Maltex Multicapital Corp. According to the leaked documents, Maltex was split equally among the firms of Volodymyr Zelensky, the brothers Serhiy and Borys Shefir, and another “Kvartal person,” screenwriter and director of the studio's productions Andriy Yakovlev.

The nominal owner of the network's center was another company, Davegra Limited. At the time, its owner was the current head of the Security Service of Ukraine, Ivan Bakanov. It was he who signed the so-called “trust declaration,” a document that records the relationship between the nominal and the real owner of a company.

As asset structuring expert Maksym Hrekov explained to the publication, trust declarations are usually concluded to preserve the confidentiality of the company's real owner. That is, Ivan Bakanov's firm acted as the nominal owner of Maltex Multicapital in order to conceal the real one: Volodymyr Zelensky and his partners.

As the journalists found in the Pandora Papers documents, the $40 million was formally paid as a contribution to the authorized capital. British financial crime expert Graham Barrow noted the opacity of such a transaction.

At the same time, the offshore companies that probably transferred funds to the “Kvartal people” are suspected of laundering billions from PrivatBank, whose co-owner was previously Ihor Kolomoisky.

In addition, according to the publication's sources, the money transfers went through the Cyprus branch of PrivatBank, the same one through which the oligarch could have laundered millions. 

New documents indicate that at least one of the companies led by “Kvartal 95” had an account at this bank. This means Zelensky's offshore companies could also have been part of a dirty money laundering story.

The publication tried to obtain comments from all the figures in this story. However, only Borys Shefir responded to the journalists' question. Unlike his partners, he did not go into politics, and now he owns a substantial part of the “Kvartal people's” offshore business.

When asked why “Kvartal 95” needed offshore companies, he replied: “Ask our lawmakers (questions — ed.) who created a situation where business is constantly under threat from bandits who come to power. At that time, it was very important to protect our interests.”

Shefir also added that he had begun closing the offshore part of the business. He did not answer a clarifying question.

The journalists also tried to obtain the position of President Volodymyr Zelensky regarding the millions from oligarch Kolomoisky and offshore dividends.  However, Zelensky's office said that “there will be no response.”