A message flashed about several structures of the so-called “Solar” group associated with the peninsula’s solar power plants, as part of the occupiers’ propaganda about all sorts of illegal “nationalizations” in the occupied Crimea.
This topic has been “in the shadow” of expert attention for a long time and, among other things, it concerns the stations “Okhotnikovo” in the Saki district, “Nikolaevka” and “Rodnikove” in the Simferopol district, which obviously did not stand idle during the occupation period. Having announced their “nationalization”, the criminal Sergey Aksyonov recently directly pointed out that the aggressor supposedly has special criminal plans for these energy facilities.
Borys Babin, an expert of our Association, tried to understand the situation with this energetic’s “dark element” of the Russia-occupied peninsula.
The activities of the projects of the Austrian company “Activ Solar” in the Crimea have been publicized since the autumn of 2011, when it was announced the completion of the construction of five phases of the Crimean “Perove” solar park, with a total installed capacity of 100 megawatts, as well as the construction of the “Okhotnikove” power plant in 80 megawatts. Prior to this, by the beginning of 2011, the company had implemented a pilot project of the “Rodnikove” solar power plant for 7.5 megawatts.
It was stated that “Perove” became the largest operating photovoltaic park in the world in terms of installed capacity, and that “Okhotnikove” was at that time the most powerful solar station in Central and Eastern Europe. In particular, the installed capacity of “Perove” was equivalent to peak loads in the power system of nearby Simferopol.
At that time, “Activ Solar” offices were opened in Kyiv, Simferopol and Odesa, it was announced that it was under the control of the “Semiconductor Plant” JSC in Zaporozhzhya, which produces polycrystalline silicon, the basic raw material for solar energy and the semiconductor industry, Kave Ertefaya was announced as the general director of the company. At the same time, the connection between “Activ Solar” and Andriy Klyuyev, the head of the administration of the then President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych, was not particularly hidden, in particular, the mentioned Ertefaya was his son-in-law.
Therefore, it is absolutely not surprising that the AR Crimea’s Council of Ministers then adopted, one after another, all new decisions on the allocation of land for the construction of more and more solar power plants from “Activ Solar”. So, in November 2011, the Council of Ministers of the AR of Crimea, without auctions, allocated 336 hectares in the Simferopol and Kirovsky districts, for such LLCs as “Capella Solar”, “Orion Solar” and “Jupiter Solar” in the Nikolaevka districts and “Bora Solar”, “Calypso Solar ”, “Canary Solar”, “Clarion Solar”, and “Lenneth Solar” near Vladislavovka.
Then “Ukrayinska Pravda” established that the founder of “Activ Solar” was a trust “P&A Corporate Trust” from Liechtenstein. At the same time, the same trust was at that time the owner of the English company “Blythe (Europe) Ltd”, registered as the owner of 35% of the Kyiv company “Tantalit”, the nominal owner of Yanukovych’s Mezhyhirya residence.
Let us add that the founder of “Activ Solar” in 2008 was the Austrian company “Slav Beteiligung GmbH”, whose 100 % owner was “Slav AG”, which, in turn, belonged to the then First deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Andriy Klyuyev and his brother Sergiy in equal shares, and later the ownership of “Activ Solar” was transferred to Kave Ertefay and further to “P&A Corporate Trust”.
Further, the scope of “Activ Solar’s” activities only increased. In April 2012, the same Council of Ministers of the AR of Crimea allocated 540 hectares to 17 companies in the territory of Belogorsky, Bakhchisarai, Dzhankoysky, Krasnoperekopsky, Nizhnegorsky, Pervomaisky, Razdolnensky, Simferopol and Chernomorsky districts for the construction of solar power plants.
The firms were unpretentiously named “Iota Solar”, “Kappa Solar”, “Lambda Solar”, “Mars Solar”, “Mercury Solar”, “Omega Solar”, “Omicron Solar”, “Saturn Solar”, “Sirius Solar”, “Sigma Solar”, “Theta Solar”, “Iota Peewee”, “Kappa Peewee”, “Lambda Peewee”, “Omega Peewee”, “Theta Peewee” and “Epsilon Peewee”. A little later, another 110 hectares were transferred to a number of these companies, as well as to “Omicron Peewee”, “Epsilon Solar”, and so on.
These processes were predictably lobbied by the State Agency for Energy Efficiency and Energy Saving, whose director Mykola Pashkevich then promised that in 2016 Ukraine intends to produce about 10% of all electricity from renewable sources. This corresponded to the “Crimean ideal” already achieved at that time, when, after the launch of “Okhotnikove” and “Perove”, the total capacity of solar energy began to cover about 10% of the total consumption on the peninsula.
However, at the same time, in a journalistic investigation by Valentina Samar for “ZN.UA”, it was indicated that really “hothouse” conditions were created for “Activ Solar”. In addition to tax and customs benefits, the provision of land without an auction and at a low rental rate, this included a “feed-in tariff” of 5.05 hryvnia per kWh, which became one of the highest in the world. Although at that time the Klyuyevs denied that this “particularly profitable” business belonged to the “family” of Yanukovych, this was an open secret.
In addition to the indicated relationship of Ertefay, Andriy Klyuyev’s son Bogdan worked as a manager of “Activ Solar”, and the general director of “Activ Solar” LLC, registered at the main Kiev office of the Klyuyev brothers at 3 Riznitska Street, was Mikhail Cherevko, who from 2007 to 2010 headed Donetsk enterprise “GBM-Ukraine”, based on the property of the Austrian company “GBM Handels – und Vertretungs GmbH”, which owned a mansion in Tulbing, where Irina Klyuyeva, wife of MP Sergiy Klyuyev, was registered.
The formal founders of these “Crimean” companies were in different proportions both Kyiv and Vienna “Active Solar”, and the funds for the construction were allegedly provided at the expense of credit funds, totaling 8.1 billion hryvnias. In particular, the press wrote about a loan of 195 million euros from the London subsidiary of the Russian “VTB Bank”, “VTB Capital PLC”, and then “Active Solar” denied this loan. The press also stated that after the construction of the stations and their connection to the energy system under the “green tariff”, their founders were massively replaced by citizens of Ukraine unknown to the Internet, registered in the villages of the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions, as well as by the Cypriot companies “Krasolina Investment” LTD and “Ournia Commercial” LTD.
However, throughout 2012, the activity of “Activ Solar” was shaken by a scandal, after “Kommersant Ukraine” published an article in which an unnamed official of the European Commission stated that in September 2011 the EU allegedly transferred 31 million euros to energy saving programs that were allegedly spent on “transmission lines connecting solar power plants in the Crimea and Odesa region with the country’s general energy grid. It should be clear to you what kind of SES we are talking about, because there are not so many stations in Ukraine related to Andriy Klyuyev”. The scandal with various accusations was hushed up by the beginning of 2013 when it was claimed that the EU aid money had not been spent.
However, the most “steep turns” started for “Activ Solar” from the beginning of the Russian occupation of the Crimea. The company announced the termination of operation from April 1, 2014 of solar power plants on the peninsula, linking this, among other things, to the fact that no one pays a “green tariff” for generated electricity. It is noteworthy that in the spring of 2015, the “confiscation” of Crimean solar power plants by Russian banks was already announced “to pay off Activ Solar’s debt on loans”.
It was also reported that in November 2015, the China National Building Materials Company (CNBM) received permission to purchase a subsidiary of “Activ Solar”, which operates ten solar parks located in the Mykolaiv and Odesa regions, as collateral for “Activ Solar’s” loan of 160 million Euro. Among other things, it was about the companies “Voskhod Solar”, “Danube SES-1”, “Danube SES-2”, “Neptune Solar”, “Franco Solar and “Franco Peewee”. CNBM also showed interest in buying the aforementioned Zaporizhzhia-based “Semiconductor Plant”.
However, it immediately turned out that the plant did not return the state loan of 2010, so in October 2015 the Ukrainian court ordered it to pay 57 million euros. Further, in February 2016, “Activ Solar” filed for reorganization with the Commercial Court of Vienna, claiming a debt of 503.4 million euros, with assets of 18.69 million euros. At the same time, “Slav Beteiligung” GmbH also announced the bankruptcy procedure, allegedly pointing to a debt of 112 million euros, more than 90% of which fell on the aforementioned Chinese state concern “CNBM International’, specifically for “commodity deliveries of equipment for solar power plants”. In Austria, this event was then dubbed “the biggest corporate bankruptcy of the year”.
At the same time, the Klyuyev brothers themselves predictably moved to Moscow, and the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office investigated the grounds for state guarantees for 200 million hryvnias of the state budget stabilization fund to pay bank interest on the “Semiconductor Plant” loan. It is noteworthy that at the same time there was a question about the confiscation of the “Ukrpodshipnik” structure associated with the Klyuevs, which owned enterprises in Bakhmut (then Artemovsk) and Konstantinovka.
The bankruptcy processes of “Activ Solar” lasted until 2017, and led to new claims from the creditor, “Ukreximbank”, who tried to return six loans totaling UAH 8.59 billion and, among other things, sue the “Semiconductor Plant” for real estate. It was also reported that the mainland “Activ Solar” stations really went away to the Chinese “CNBM”, but the Crimean ones turned out to be financed by the state-owned “Oschadbank”, with an outstanding loan debt of 19 billion hryvnias.
At the same time, “Oschadbank”, having won the Ukrainian courts, stated that it could not confiscate solar power plants in the occupied Crimea, and this billion of lost investments became, among other things, the subject of international arbitration in Paris, which was finally won by “Oschadbank” in all instances, where Russia appealed for a long time all decisions, just in time for the spring of 2023.
At the same time, in the occupied Crimea, fake “debt collection processes” in 2017 were initiated by the London division of the “VTB Group”, “VTB Capital Plc”, and the Cypriot “Ournia Commercial” LTD “surfaced” as the “respondent” there. Prior to that, in 2015, the said VTB structure filed a lawsuit with the Moscow Arbitration Court against Crimean “firms” “Alfa Solar”, “Beta Solar”, “Zeta Solar” and “Gamma Solar” for “collection of debt and interest on loan agreements in the amount of EUR 129.486 million”.
VTB associated all these initiatives with a 2012 loan agreement for 175 million euros, which was signed by the Ukrainian “Alfa Solar”, “Beta Solar”, “Zeta Solar”, “Gamma Solar”. And in these “processes”, the situation of illegal “re-registration” of these four companies at the address Simferopol, Rubtsova Street, 44a, apartment 5 was outlined and they and their other namesakes before “Crimea Solar 5” are allegedly owned by the Austrian “Black Sea Renewable Energies GmbH”, registered under “CEE Clean Economic Energy AG”.
An analysis of the illegal “registries” of the invaders regarding all the “Crimean suncatchers” shows that the firms controlled by Klyuyev were “re-registered”, in particular, we are talking about “Alfa Solar”, “Zeta Solar”, “Calypso Solar”, “Canary Solar”, “Capella Solar”, “Omao Solar”, “Omega Solar”, “Oriol Solar”, “Ouzil Solar”, “Jupiter Solar”, “numbered” “Crimea Solar 1” up to “Crimea Solar 5” and so on.
These “firms” have in common not only the sudden “change of address” from the mentioned one to office 32 on Frunze Street, Simferopol, 8, in the so-called “business center”, but also the “bankruptcy procedure” that began in August 2020, when their common Aleksey Bulka, the “arbitrator” from the occupiers, became the “leader”.
And before that, among the “directors” of all these “Solars” the same people flashed like Yuri Kashich, Alexander Panov, Andrey Selyutin, Niyara Khalilova, Lyudmila Skrynnikova. All these numerous “zits-chairmen” were not alien to the “sunny business” of the Klyuyevs even before the occupation, for example, in Ukrainian registries, the same Yuriy Kashich is still listed as the director of “Crimea Solar 1”, listed in the village of Rodnikove on Krymskaya Street.
It should be noted that all illegal “Solar” from the occupiers also have “founders” the same “Black Sea Renewable Energies GmbH” and “CEE Clean Economic Energy AG”, that is, they did not leave anywhere “from under the wing” of the Klyuyevs after 2014. However, the most interesting thing was given by the “contact emails” of the occupying “Solars”, since it was obviously more difficult to change them than the “legal addresses” of the “directors”, these emails are not only common to all companies, but are also clearly connected with the Simferopol accountant Svetlana Frankovskaya.
How can you be sure in the “databases” since 2020, Frankovskaya has been looking for a job for $ 950 a month and indicated in her resume her experience both in “Crimea Solar”, until 2015, and in the Moscow company “Power Services”. This company, which the “press” of the occupiers associated with the “Crimean solar energy”, was bankrupted in 2020 by the Moscow Arbitration Court, and its founder was “Greentech Energy Services Ltd” from the British Virgin Islands.
And here it is no longer surprising either the mention of the same Frankovskaya that until 2014 she worked in the Ukrainian “Greentech Energy”, or the fact that such a company was in the Ukrainian register of large taxpayers for 2014 under the number 2013 and code 37702760, or that this is a legal entity after 2014, it was renamed twice, to “System Power Engineering” and then, in 2020, to “Bruckheimer Investments” and registered in Kiev on General Almazov Street.
At the same time, the press, describing the above investigations into the loss of Ukrainian budget funds for connecting power plants, among other things, pointed to the connection of “System Power Engineering” through the founders Alexander Khizhnyak and Vladimir Mukalov with “East Energy Engineering”, where they noted together with Irina Marich, director “Active Solar”.
Therefore, it is not at all surprising that among the counterparties of “Greentech Energy”, aka “Bruckheimer Investments”, “Neptune Solar”, “Bolgrad Solar”, and “Voskhod Solar” are still listed. At the same time, the aforementioned Chinese concern CNBM is indeed indicated as the beneficiary of part of the mainland “Solars”, but for “Bolgrad Solar”, the beneficiaries are constantly changing, but all of them are somehow connected with the Cypriot company “Qualisto Holdings” LTD.
More surprising is something else, namely the fact that Svetlana Frankovskaya, the accountant of the “solar companies” of the Klyuyevs, has clearly found the source of financing she was looking for. Now her e-mail, saved in the contacts of the illegal “Crimean” “Solars”, is indicated as the address for the Moscow “shipping company” “Luxtrans”.
Let us recall that this structure is the formal “owner” of 80% of the illegal Crimean “mobile operator” “Miranda-media”, acting as an “umbrella” for the beneficiaries associated with the aggressor corporation “Rostelecom”, moreover, the “founders and owners” declared for “Luxtrans”, are the “top managers” of the “Miranda-media” – Oleg Sukhov and Pavel Toporishchev.
Such “coincidences with the employment of accountants” are especially “desirable” given the connection we have described between the “IC Invest” structure in the illegal “implementation of investment and infrastructure projects” on the territory of the occupied half of the island, connected both with illegal “cellular operators” operating in Crimea – K-Telecom (Win Mobile) and KTK Telecom (Volna Mobile), as well as with the laying of power lines.
Thus, one thing is clear – during all the years of occupation, various structures made good money at the solar power plants of the peninsula, and their current “nationalization”, regardless of how much the real beneficiaries change under it, is just another step in the often criminal combinations described above.
