Private military companies (PMCs) are illegal in Ukraine. But it has rarely stopped people with deep enough pockets, who are fond of solving their business issues with a kind word and a gun.
Late on March 24, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) raided and disarmed a training camp run by DBC Corp., a security contractor founded by former soldiers and officers of the paramilitary Donbas Battalion, which used to fight Russian-sponsored forces in the Donbas.
According to the SBU, the unlicensed company had stockpiles of military-grade weapons and was training its personnel for combat. Law enforcers accused the illegal PMC’s employees of smuggling military equipment from Russia.
And journalists reported that DBC Corp. has fought in corporate wars on behalf of billionaire oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, who was recently sanctioned by the United States and faces civil and criminal investigations in several countries.
On March 26, the Slidstvo.Info investigative journalism agency reported that DBC’s subsidiary in Ukraine defended Kolomoisky’s interests by having a gunfight in Kyiv, preventing state officials from entering state-owned energy company Centrenergo and helping organize protests against members of the National Bank of Ukraine.
Kolomoisky didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Base in the woods
The SBU reported that the PMC unofficially employed 150 people disguised as members of other, legal security companies and civic organizations. According to the SBU, DBC Corp. is effectively a mercenary company. Running one is a criminal felony in Ukraine.
“The combat training for the PMC operatives was carried out at a special training base in Kyiv Oblast,” the SBU said. “Also, some of the employees have completed training courses abroad.”
The company was allegedly run by 15 senior staff members who sought out new recruits from among former military service members and law enforcers with combat experience.
Notably, the organization was headed by Semyon Semenchenko, a former lawmaker and founder of the Donbas Battalion, as well as Yevhen Shevchenko, a blogger closely tied to Semenchenko, who was presented as “a non-staff agent” with the country’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) in a number of high-profile corruption cases.
The SBU says Semenchenko and Shevchenko are “possible organizers and coordinators of an illegal scheme to smuggle military and double-use hardware from Russia to be sold to Ukrainian defense production enterprises at inflated prices.”
SBU operatives unearthed scores of weapons and munitions at the DBC Corp. base, including 5,500 small arms rounds, seven anti-tank RPG-26 rockets, four under-barrel grenade launchers, 38 VOG-25 grenades, a Kalashnikov PK machine gun, three pistols, three Kalashnikov AKS and AKS-74 rifles, two other assault rifles, seven slide-action shotguns, and 21 F-1 and RGD-5 hand grenades.
The SBU said the PMC was making security service contracts with “various organizations in the Middle East,” adding that “there have been propositions to organize supplies of weapons into these countries.”
On the following day, the security service stated that Semenchenko had registered the PMC abroad, while Shevchenko was responsible for acquiring weapons, equipment and explosives for training and operations.
During follow-up searches all across Ukraine, the SBU also seized over 20 firearms, over 15,000 rounds, and many explosives, mortar projectiles and grenade launchers.
The investigation connected the illegal smuggling of weapons from Russia to Andriy Rogoza, a businessman involved in a range of high-profile corruption scandals in Ukraine’s defense industry.
Neither Semenchenko nor Shevchenko was taken into custody.
Both denied being involved in illegal activity.
According to Shevchenko, Semenchenko invited him to invest in a company that would render security services in Syria and Afghanistan under contracts from the U.S. State Department, but cooperation between the two men never took off.
“That was Semyon’s idea,” Shevchenko told Hromadske media outlet late on March 24. “I told him I was ready to allocate financing for a real existing contract. A contract never panned out, so we parted our ways.”
Shevchenko also denied his involvement in arms smuggling. Earlier, he reported on his Facebook page that SBU operatives had searched his home and “found nothing illegal, seized nothing.”
On March 26, the SBU charged Semenchenko with creating an illegal paramilitary force to be deployed to Iraq, Syria and Libya, “aiming to instigate international conflicts and recruit volunteers in Ukraine.”
Semenchenko denied the charges and said he had “always acted in the best interest of Ukraine” and was “surprised” to learn he had been declared “the most terrible terrorist.” He insisted that his force was created to fight against Wagner Group, the notorious Russian mercenary army closely associated with the Kremlin.
No secret made
However, the most surprising aspect of the case may be the fact that the SBU only now decided to bust Semenchenko’s company. DBC (an abbreviation of Donbas Battalion Corporation) has acted in the open for years.
It even has a Facebook group and a Wikipedia page, which say the company was founded in 2018 by former Donbas Battalion veterans together with American investors in New York, where its headquarters is allegedly located. Private military contractors are legal in the U.S.
DBC Corp. claims to have chapters in the U.S., Ukraine, Poland, Iraq and Kenya.
For years, the company made no secret of its presence on Ukrainian soil or the location of its training base near the village of Suvyd, 45 kilometers northeast of Kyiv, even inviting journalists there.
In interviews, one of the company’s senior officers, former Donbas Battalion commander Anatoliy Vynohrodskiy claimed that the DBC Corp. provided strictly non-military security services and does not count as a mercenary unit under Ukrainian law.
Vynohrodskiy said that DBC Corp. intended to take contracts outside Ukraine. He claimed that the base near Kyiv is only used for basic fitness training and not weapons training.
However, numerous pictures show DBC Corp. recruits and instructors firing weapons at the base.
The company said it had planned to employ nearly 3,000 personnel with monthly salaries starting at $2,000, while fresh recruits get some $500 a month during their basic training course.
Shevchenko claimed in an interview with Censor.NET on March 25 that Semenchenko’s PMC has had financial troubles and conflicts with investors. In particular, he said, Kazakhstani businessman Sergey Borisenko invested at least $1 million in DBC Corp., but later accused Semenchenko of fraud and got in touch with the SBU.
Kolomoisky’s private army?
An attempt to legalize and regulate private security contractors in Ukraine was made in early February 2020 in a bill submitted to parliament by Olha Vasylevska-Smagliuk, a lawmaker with President Volodymyr Zelensky’s 248-seat Servant of the People party
Many experts raised concerns that this would allow powerful people to have their own fully-equipped private armies fighting for their interests.
However, that may have been the case regardless. The media has associated Semenchenko with Kolomoisky for years.
According to the latest reports, Semenchenko’s unofficial private military company could be involved in business conflicts at the behest of the notorious oligarch.
According to the PMC’s Facebook page, DBC Corp. works in Ukraine through its local subsidiary, Doncorp Ukraine.
On March 26, Slidstvo.Info, reported that Doncorp members controlled by Semenchenko were involved in a February gunfight at a developer construction site in Kyiv, in which Kolomoisky’s long-time friend and business partner Mykhailo Kiperman reportedly has business interests.
“It was discovered that one of the minivans taken by police following the incident belongs to the Doncorp structures,” journalists said.
They added that in early 2020, Doncorp members also guarded the premises of Centrenergo, a major state-run energy company, reportedly headed by officials loyal to Kolomoisky. Centrenergo also signed an Hr 300,000 ($10,700) security contract with Doncorp as late as November 2020.
“It should be noted that a month ago, Doncorp members prevented the head of State Property Fund from entering the Centrenergo’s office to obstruct the management reshuffle,” Slidstvo.Info said. “Just to get in, (head of the State Property Fund) Dmytro Sennychenko had to deploy law enforcers.”
In late 2019, the Doncorp personnel were also involved in rallies against Yakiv Smoliy and Kateryna Rozhkova, who served as the National Bank of Ukraine’s top officials, according to the journalists. Smoliy publicly accused Kolomiosky of orchestrating the rallies as part of his campaign against the nationalization of PrivatBank, which was previously owned by the oligarch.
