Maksym Krippa’s empire: A front for Russian oligarch Malofeev’s money?

In the last three years, an image of a successful entrepreneur in the cyber sphere, reaching unprecedented financial heights in the profession, is being sculpted from Krippa. Such a measure is clearly forced — they turned to it after the scandalous transfer of the "Dnipro" hotel to Krippa in 2020. After the first major privatization auction of the new Ukrainian government was pompously publicized in pro-presidential media, and Zelensky himself wrote an enthusiastic post about it, a serious scandal erupted — the opposition immediately dug up the details of the purchase.

It turned out that the hotel in the center of Kyiv was bought at a bargain price by a previously unknown LLC "Smartland," which was literally registered a week before the auction. Behind LLC "Smartland" appeared the figure of Maksym Krippa, who turned out to be a very strange person, emerging in Ukraine as if out of nowhere after a change of power in 2019 and starting to buy up real estate in the country in large quantities. In addition to the "Dnipro" hotel, he owns several dozen various objects, all of which Maksym Krippa acquired under rather strange circumstances

Thus, LLC "Midal" bought the National Bank’s "Knyazhyi Dvir" holiday base for 33 million hryvnias and the property complex of the nationalized Prominvestbank in elite Kozyn for 311 million. Without touching on the prices themselves, which are clearly understated, and the auctions themselves, which were rather strange, let’s focus on the financial position of LLC "Midal" Krippa, which spent almost 350 million only on these two purchases:

Having a loss of almost 22 million and another 53 million in debt, LLC "Midal" somehow obtains 350 million hryvnias and wins in auctions for the sale of state property. A logical question arises — where did the money come from?

The answer is very simple, and in fact, this answer clarifies the fact of the existence of that mind-boggling amount of fakes that the persona of Maksym Krippa is entangled with. The money belongs to the ideologue of the "Russian world," a loyal supporter of Putin and at the same time Krippa’s master, Konstantin Malofeev. Krippa worked for him at Rostelecom, promoting online casinos in this network and attracting clientele there.

Krippa has long-standing and close relations with Malofeev. Even before fleeing to Russia in 2015, after a failed scam with selling places in the party list of "Samopomich," Krippa collaborated with the Russian oligarch in the field of gambling and the promotion of online casinos, having the word "Vulkan" in their name. He did this from Kyiv, where his head office was located. It ended with a visit from the SBU and a criminal case, which, according to the traditions of Ukraine and its security service, quietly faded away. Moreover, through the efforts of Krippa (or rather – those people who stand behind him), mentions of searches in the office of the company Lucky Labs, which served Malofeev and promoted those very "Vulcans" in his networks, were carefully erased. Perhaps we wouldn’t have learned about the criminal case against Lucky Labs years later if it weren’t for the litigation between its co-owners, pouring into press publications in Europe and the US. It turned out that a conflict arose between the partners after Maksym Krippa and Maksym Polyakov, on one side, duped two other partners — Russians Sergey Tokarev and Rustam Gilfanov. The case went to international courts, and there some details of SBU’s claims to Krippa surfaced.

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Maksym Krippa, who headed the Kyiv office of Lucky Labs, came under SBU investigation back in 2013, and the case was related to work for Malofeev and online casinos. But then Krippa was simply "taxed," and he continued to work. The second time, the claims were much more serious — in 2015, the SBU already charged Krippa with financing the DNR and LNR. By the way, Polyakov was subsequently excluded from NASA’s space program for this, which indicates that the accusations were not false. And they couldn’t be false at least because Malofeev was actively pouring money into the "Novorossiya" project, and Krippa supplied him with this money through online casinos. But the essence is not in this, but in the fact that the case surprisingly stalled and got lost in the depths of either the courts or the SBU itself.

However, in light of the events of the last one and a half years, there is a chance that the case will be revived. Especially since there is another episode directly related to the Russian special operation in Ukraine. The IT company Evoplay, which Krippa headed until 2015 and was a co-owner of, was sold to Konstantin Malofeev and was highlighted in cooperation with the IT department of the Pravda.ru publication and participation in the "Olgino troll factory" during the conflict in Donbass and the "Russian Spring." It’s not that difficult to trace when Evoplay started working for the Russian side - before the sale or after. If, of course, there is a desire. Unfortunately, there are reasonable doubts in this matter in light of the events with the purchase of the most interesting objects of Ukrainian state property by Krippa’s companies.

Related to this, there are also criminal cases. For instance, that very LLC "Midal," which bought the NBU holiday base and elite estate in Kozyn against its losses, is involved in a criminal case against the officials of that Kozyn village council. As follows from the materials of criminal proceedings № 420211100000000108 from April 29, 2021, under part 2 of article 364 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine ("Abuse of Authority or Official Position"), the Kozyn village council allotted several coastal plots to LLC "Midal," which is prohibited by law.

The number of plots is astounding — there are more than two dozen of them, we are talking about hectares of the nature reserve zone, which were quietly handed over to Krippa by the leaders of the Kozyn village council. Why such a warm attitude towards a bankrupt company? There is no answer to this question, but one can guess: Kozyn is exactly the place where the "servants of the people" of all times built their estates. The current "servants" are no exception. Therefore, the answer to the question "who leaked several tens of hectares of the Dnipro beach zone to Krippa?" is quite simple: and who is in power with us?

However, something went wrong. And the prosecutor’s office initiated a criminal case on this fact. However, everything followed the usual scenario — the case got stuck in the courts. Apparently, the prosecutor, who did not understand the essence of what was happening in the country, was explained who is the master in the house. Approximately the same story — and with the lands of the protected Trukhaniv Island, located in the center of the capital. Here, another of Krippa’s companies, "SLV-P," tried with the help of the Kyiv municipal company "Pleso" to seize a piece of land on the island. This too, according to the law, is not allowed. But when you really want to — you can. So far, the prosecutor’s office has also stalled the process, but — for how long?

And here we return to the question — will at least one case brought against the person who openly launders money of the Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeev, in the most brazen and cynical way investing them in Ukraine, be brought to a logical conclusion?