In late April, the occupiers-controlled “Sevastopol media” published characteristic “reminiscences of better days” penned by a local collaborator named Alexander Krasilnikov. Prior to the occupation, Krasilnikov was the owner of the city’s football club, “Sevastopol” a position he assumed following the murder of the team’s previous owner in 1995, as well he was a former deputy of the Sevastopol City Council and head of the city’s football federation.
A former officer of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet, Krasilnikov allegedly “transferred ownership of the club” during the first months of the occupation to a certain “non-profit partnership of Sevastopol fans.” He himself went on to become one of the organizers of the “Crimean Football Union”; currently, the occupiers’ “registries” list him as the proprietor of a number of “firms” engaged in various lines of business.
Now, Krasilnikov claims that he “ultimately found himself trapped within a system where a private investor is practically doomed to fail,” and that, by the most conservative estimates, “financing the football club “Sevastopol” currently requires approximately 100 million rubles per year.”
We have previously reported that since 2023, following the commencement of schemes involving the unlawful inclusion of “Sevastopol” into the Russian “Second League” the club has served as a PR vehicle for the aggressor’s gauleiter, Mikhail Razvozhaev.
We also noted that, for a time, the aggressor’s “registries” listed the notorious “Sevastopolstroyproekt” as the club’s “founder”, an entity through which the gauleiter’s inner circle launders hundreds of billions of rubles via “federal contracts.”
Currently, the registered address of the “autonomous mon-profit organization” known as “Football club Sevastopol” coincides with the former address of the aforementioned “Sevastopolstroyproekt”; its “founders” remain undisclosed, while the controversial “coach” Valery Chaly has been listed as its “general director.” In 2025, this entity reported “losses” amounting to tens of millions.
Interestingly, the occupiers maintain a separate clone of the “Professional football club “Sevastopol”,” for which Anatoly Seleznev and his daughter, Alina, are listed as nominal figureheads.
This same businessman, Seleznev, is also listed as the “general director” of the “Zarya” boarding house, located in the coastal village of Nizhnezamorske on the Kerch Peninsula.
Meanwhile, the “owner” of “Zarya” is listed as the Moscow-based “State Scientific Research Institute of Instrument Engineering.”
The aforementioned “revelations” by Krasilnikov regarding a “lack of funding” should, in reality, be interpreted as thinly veiled demands for continued involvement in the “football” schemes orchestrated by Sevastopol’s guleiter, schemes involving the laundering of funds through “Sevastopolstroyproekt.”
Notably, in the comments section accompanying these statements, Sevastopol residents pointed out that prior to the occupation, “Sevastopol” had achieved respectable results; the club maintained two direct-reserve youth squads, four junior teams, and an “extensive youth development network, spanning from the earliest ages and featuring boarding groups and specialized classes”, the establishment of which had “taken many years.”
It was further noted that, even under occupation, the club initially managed to “coast on this legacy”; however, “as of today, only two Sevastopol-born players remain on the first-team roster”, a squad that has failed to demonstrate any meaningful results in the aggressor state’s “championships.”
