Presidential candidate and popular comedic actor Volodymyr Zelenskiy has promised to give up ownership of his Cyprus-registered company that owns an active film-making studio in Russia after it was uncovered by investigative journalists.
Journalists of Schemes, RFE/RL’s investigative program, revealed that Zelenskiy and his business partners still owned three film-making companies in Russia despite the actor’s earlier claims that he had closed his Russian business in 2014 after the Kremlin had occupied Ukrainian territories and begun waging its war against the country.
The journalists’ findings stirred up public criticism of Zelenskiy, who is running for the Ukrainian presidency in the March 31 election on a populist, anti-elite agenda, while relying on his television fame as a political satirist.
In a 5-minute long snippet from his interview to Ukrainian newspaper Ukrainska Pravda, which will be aired in full on Jan. 21, Zelenskiy confirmed the information was true and said he was “on the way to closing those companies.”
According to an investigation aired on Jan. 17, three Russian companies had the same founder with Zelenskiy’s production studio Kvartal 95 in Ukraine – a Cyprus-registered firm called Green Family Ltd.
One of the companies, Green Film, has been active and produced movies and television series that raked in millions of dollars in profits.
It also received a grant from the Russian federal budget for its latest project, a thriller movie currently in production.
Zelenskiy denied his role in it.
“Yes, they applied for funding. Those who work in that company,” Zelenskiy told Ukrainska Pravda.
In his words, he and his business partners receive film and television royalties from Green Film on shows produced by Kvartal 95 until 2014, and the only reason that kept them from closing the company was a 10-year contract which is due to expire in 2021.
“What should we do? Hand our money to Russians? No. The money goes to our Cyprus company and from there comes to Ukraine,” he said. “If we close the company now, the money will remain to Russians. This is our money. We earned it in an honest way.”
The actor claimed that he’s not able to go to Russia to close the Russian production studio. Instead, he has decided to give up ownership of its Cyprus-registered founder company, Green Family.
It means he will also lose his ownership rights on Kvartal 95, founded by him in 2003.
Besides Zelenskiy, Green Family’s beneficiaries are Andriy Yakovlev, Borys and Serhiy Shefir, and Timur Mindich, a man identified as an associate of oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky.
