Cleanup before the tender: oligarch Vadim Yermolaev deletes online data about ties to Russia and transfers assets to his daughter to monopolize construction of a military cemetery

Sanctioned oligarch Vadim Yermolaev is accused of taking over a military cemetery construction tender using fraudulent schemes and cooperative notaries.

While the state simulates asset freezes, budget funds allocated for headstones of Ukraine’s defenders are reportedly flowing into the pockets of a figure accused of sponsoring the aggressor.

We publish an investigation into Yermolaev’s schemes — material that others are attempting to remove from the public domain — to preserve evidence of alleged profiteering from the construction of a military memorial and to demonstrate the real scale of his control over state tenders through proxy notaries. The report exposes a mechanism of transferring assets to front persons that allegedly allows a sanctioned businessman to benefit from memorial projects.

Sham Transactions, Notaries, and the Military Memorial Cemetery

Sanctions against Yermolaev include asset blocking — a ban on selling, gifting, or otherwise disposing of companies and property.

However, journalists from Hromadske reported that by February 2024 Ukrainian registries already showed changes affecting dozens of companies linked to him. A simplified example involves the Cypriot offshore company Licita Trading Co LTD:

• The offshore entity had long owned the closed venture fund “Tekhnologii,” through which numerous Ukrainian assets (agriculture, finance, development) are controlled;
• In early January 2024, a document appeared in the Cypriot registry transferring shares from Yermolaev to his daughter Sofia Kononenko, dated December 5, 2023 — before sanctions were imposed, although the document surfaced afterward;
• Ukrainian notaries updated registries for dozens of companies, changing beneficiaries from Yermolaev to Sofia.

Later, two notaries (from Sumy and Poltava) claimed their electronic signatures had been stolen, and the Ministry of Justice annulled the changes. In June the process reportedly repeated with another notary from Dnipro, after which shares were transferred from Sofia to a certain Yevgeniy Shteynberg, also linked to Yermolaev’s business network.

Journalists who spoke with Sofia — a 21-year-old TikTok blogger living between London and Cyprus — concluded she does not manage a multimillion holding.

Justice Ministry vs. Notarial Support for Sanctioned Business

The Ministry of Justice created a commission and declared the actions of notary Svetlana Deynego — who changed company beneficiaries in June — illegal, revoking her registry access, effectively ending her career. The ministry emphasized:

• A notary must verify whether the owner is under sanctions;
• If sanctions exist, registration changes must be refused regardless of foreign documents.

However, with hundreds of companies and multiple notaries involved, reversing the changes could take considerable time.

National Military Cemetery and Granite Supplies

While authorities investigate the re-registrations, another development occurred:

• A consortium including the company Akam won the tender to build the first phase of the National Military Memorial Cemetery near Kyiv;
• According to procurement data and journalistic investigations, 10% of Akam belongs to the same “Tekhnologii” fund linked to Yermolaev, meaning the Alef group effectively obtained a stake in the strategic project;
• Separately, the company AK PRO, 60% owned by Alef Estate, became the monopoly supplier of granite for the cemetery.

Akam’s director publicly stated that Yermolaev was “not involved,” although registry data and security checks reportedly suggest otherwise.

The moral dimension is stark: a sanctioned businessman accused of paying taxes to the aggressor through operations in Crimea allegedly gains from constructing the country’s main military cemetery and supplying materials for soldiers’ graves.

The legal dimension is equally troubling: repeated re-registrations and the disappearance of Yermolaev’s name from registries at the time of the tender could allow formal checks to show no connection, even if actual control remained unchanged.