Bottoms up: How the Alcohol Business Works in Donetsk and Who Started a New Turf War
In mid-September, a Russian TV channel, RTVI, published an interview with Viktor Khrystoforov. He was described as a Donetsk businessman and “once a major player in the alcohol market of the DPR”. The man, whose name means absolutely nothing to an ordinary Russian citizen, was given 30 minutes of airtime. In the studio, Khrystoforov spoke in detail about his once profitable business, which was allegedly “nicked” from him by the close associates of the former head of the Donetsk “republic” Alexander Zakharchenko. Novyny Donbasu found out which factories really belonged to Viktor Khrystoforov and whether he has any business in the Ukrainian government-controlled territories.
Two alcohol companies in the Donetsk “republic”: Whose are they?
Throughout the ten years of the war, the Donetsk “republic” has preferred to turn a blind eye to the fact that the occupied territories have returned to the 90s in terms of the criminal situation. On the other hand, it is difficult to comment, condemn, and ban anything when the Kremlin’s proxies themselves play first violins in this orchestra. Propagandists are used to talking about the 2014 “Russian spring” as a movement at the call of the heart, which was allegedly supported by business. In his interview, Viktor Khrystoforov described in detail how it all began.
“In 2014, the situation in Donetsk was quite tense. There were a lot of battalions, including Vostok and Piatnashka, there were a lot of them. And everyone, roughly speaking, chose a battalion in their district and helped this battalion as much as they could – with equipment, vehicles, and finances. That is, no one ever hid from anyone. All the factories that were there helped,” Khrystoforov said.
Pro-Russian militants in Donetsk, May 2014. Photo: Sergiy Vaganov
It’s hard to believe that this help was given not at gunpoint. However, despite this patronage, in 2015, according to Viktor Khrystoforov, the Donetsk “republic” seized all his factories.
“There were several distilleries there. There was also the Olimp company. They seized the Olimp first. And the next company that was there was mine. Vinzavod was seized literally a week after the Olimp was seized. Perhaps a week or two had passed. And while our enterprises were seized with tanks and armoured personnel carriers, the Olimp itself transferred its management rights. I did not transfer any rights to anyone. Neither to the Alcohol Management Group nor to the Golden Alliance,” Khrystoforov recalled.
The Alcohol Management Group is registered in Donetsk at 103 Ilyich Avenue. According to information in Russian registers, it still exists. It was re-registered in Russia in 2022. And Viktor Khrystoforov is still listed as the head of the company. At the same time, The Second Distillery LLC is located at this address, but it is run by other people.
Data from the Russian Register of Legal Entities
The Second Distillery positions itself as the first producer on Alpha alcohol in Donetsk. Its product line is quite wide and, as stated on its website, it supplies “almost every region of the DPR”. A year ago, The Second Distillery was active on social media, advertising its products, including not only vodka but also various liqueurs. However, after October 15, 2023, the company pages have been silent. The reason is unclear. According to Khrystoforov, the company is not doing well. “They don’t pay salaries, and they have 98 million in losses.” The registers of the Russian Federation do indeed state that at the end of 2023, the losses of The Second Distillery totalled 98.5 million. But there was allegedly revenue of 231 million rubles. The fact that Khrystoforov refers to this company as his own means that the Alcohol Management Group and The Second Distillery are the same company.
At the same time, The First Distillery operates in Donetsk. It is registered at 26 Dzerzhinsky Avenue, where the aforementioned Olimp company used to be. The Katya-Plus is also located there, and its alcoholic beverages can be found on the shelves in Donetsk.
The First Distillery operates at the seized facilities of Olimp. Photo: The First Distillery website
Both companies are run by Kateryna Sheybut, a daughter of Viktor Sheybut, the former first deputy head of the Ukrainian State Migration Service. In 2017, it became known that the SBU suspected the Sheybut family of financing the Donetsk “republic.” According to the agency, it was in 2015 that Kateryna, with the help of local militants, took over the Donetsk Distillery, where industrial-scale production was established. In 2018, she won the “Person of the Year” award in the Donetsk “republic” in the nomination “For Achievements in the Industry”. That is, Kateryna Sheybut’s business flourished under occupation and she was considered a successful businesswoman.
Kateryna Sheybut. Photo: Social media
People close to Oleksandr Zakharchenko
Viktor Khrystoforov said that problems with his business began when Oleksandr Zakharchenko and his cronies came to power. He referred to Olexandr Timofeev, nicknamed “Tashkent”. Previously, he held the position of the so-called “Minister of Revenue and Duties” of the Donetsk “republic”.
Olexandr Timofeev and Olexandr Zakharchenko. Photo from open sources
It has been repeatedly reported that Timofeev, under Oleksandr Zakharchenko’s auspices, confiscated not only companies but also mines and real estate. However, after Zakharchenko was killed and Denys Pushylin became the head of the occupied Donetsk region, Timofeev was dismissed from all his posts. He left for Russia, where in 2022 he was sentenced to three and a half years in prison on charges of fraud.
After the murder of Oleksandr Zakharchenko, vodka with his portrait was produced at The Second Distillery
According to Viktor Khrystoforov, the second person involved in the nicking of his business was Vitaliy Metla. In the mirror world called the “Donetsk People’s Republic”, he occupies today an honourable place. He is the president of the Veles Sports and Patriotic Club and the Shakhtior football club. It has nothing to do with the actual football club. Russian and local media are currently reporting only good things about Vitaliy Metla. He is allegedly raising local sport from its knees and helping pensioners. But nine years ago, according to Viktor Khrystoforov, it was this way:
“On 21 November, Metla came to the plant with a bunch of guards, tanks, armoured personnel carriers, machine guns. They were armed to the teeth in the full sense of the word. They gathered the entire staff and the entire management of the enterprise. He announced: ‘I am Metla, I have a paper from Zakharchenko for a year’s temporary administration.’ From November 21, 2015, we have not had access to the plant.”
Vitaliy Metla. Photo: “People’s council” of the Donetsk “republic”
According to Viktor Khrystoforov, it was Vitaliy Metla who became the owner of the plant after the seizure. There is no direct connection in the registers, but 103 Ilyich Avenue, where the Alcohol Management Group is registered, also houses several sports organisations, including the Veles sports club, of which Vitaliy Metla is the president.
Vladislav Gelzin also appears in Khrystoforov’s story. He was a football player and a member of the Donetsk regional council from the Party of Regions, the founder of the Olimpik football club.
Vladyslav Gelzin. Photo: FC Olimpik
Gelzin owns the Pchilka supermarket chain in the government-controlled territories. In addition, he is a founder of many other companies, including the Alcohol Management Group Limited, whose name is almost identical to that of Viktor Khrystoforov’s company. It was registered in Kyiv in 2016. Its phone number is the same as that of other companies connected to Khrystoforov’s name.
Data from YouControl
None of these characters responded to Viktor Khrystoforov’s interview. Instead, the Donetsk “republic” brought in the heavy artillery – Olexandr Zakharchenko’s father. He appealed directly to Putin, saying that his son’s name was being defamed. In reality, however, Zakharchenko, whom local Russia supporters are nearly about to consider a saint, was the one responsible for all financial flows. During his brief rule in the occupied territory of the Donetsk region, his family took control of the premises of the ATB and Amstor supermarket chains. In addition, Zakharchenko was involved in the coal and oil market.
Oleksandr Zakharchenko’s father recorded a video address to Vladimir Putin. A still from the video
Viktor Khrystoforov: A businessman in occupation, in Russia, and Ukraine
Nowadays, Viktor Khrystoforov certainly looks like a great insider and a champion of justice. However, it is naïve to think that he appeared on RTVI for no reason. Especially since this media outlet is associated with the Russian state-owned company Rostec. That is, without approval from above, he would hardly have been given airtime. In his story, Khrystoforov complained that he sent letters to all the structures of the Donetsk “republic,” but the case allegedly got off the ground only after the Kremlin called the seized regions “new subjects of the Russian Federation.” Perhaps, in this way, propaganda is trying to imply that lawlessness reigned in the occupied part of the Donetsk region, but in 2022, Russia came and brought order.
Viktor Khrystoforov. Still from the RTVI video
At the same time, it is worth taking a closer look at Viktor Khrystoforov himself. He said that after losing his business in 2015, he moved to Crimea with his wife and three children. Until 2023, Khrystoforov allegedly did not appear in Donetsk. He spent almost all of 2016 in Moscow, but at the same time, he was constantly crossing the Ukrainian-Russian border. For what purpose, Khrystoforov did not specify. Since 2018, he said, he has been running a “fairly successful business in the Moscow region”. The Russian registers show that Khrystoforov owned companies not only there, but also in the Russian Rostov region and Crimea. But for some reason, the Donetsk businessman did not mention his companies in the territory controlled by Ukraine while there are many of them.
So, speaking about the Donetsk company Alcohol Management Group, Khrystoforov said that formally, it did not have any production facilities, but leased them from the Golden Alliance LLC. At first, the company was allegedly registered to Khrystoforov’s wife, and then to his mother. However, the Ukrainian registers list Viktor and Iryna Khrystoforov as the founders. It is unclear who exactly Iryna Viktorivna is, but it was not only her that Khrystoforov brought into his business. In 2016, Iryna became the head of the Golden Alliance. This company is currently registered in Kyiv at 6b Staronavodnytska Street, office 211.
Data from YouControl
The Alcohol Management Group LLC is located at the same address. That is, the company was re-registered not only in Russia but also in the Ukrainian capital, in 2018, after the Khrystoforov family had left Donetsk and allegedly started a business in the Moscow region. Six years ago, the head of the Alcohol Management Group also changed. Instead of Viktor Khrystoforov, this position was taken over by a certain Sergey Kuropyatkin, a man who is part of the pool of those associated with Khrystoforov’s companies. For example, with the Alcohol Management Group Limited, the company mentioned by Novyny Donbasu when it came to Vladislav Gelzin.
The owner of the Kyiv-based Alcohol Management Group is Yulia Khrystoforova. According to the information in the registers, it was she who invested 2,000 hryvnias of the authorised share capital of this company. The figure is ridiculous, given that the company is allegedly engaged in the production of wines and cider. Yulia Khrystoforova invested more, namely UAH 100,000, in another LLC, World Spirit. It is also located at 6b Staronavodnytska Street. Its phone number is the same as that of the Alcohol Management Group. And that’s not all. Yulia Khrystoforova is the ultimate beneficiary of the company World Spirit Elite.
Data from YouControl
This company is located at a different address, but Ivan Khrystoforov, Viktor’s son, appears there. This information is stated in one of the court decisions.
Data from YouControl
In general, the companies of the Khrystoforov family, as well as its members, have been frequently involved in administrative, commercial and criminal proceedings since 2015. Viktor Khrystoforov himself is involved in more than ten court cases. The same number is associated with his son Ivan. For example, one of the proceedings brought the whole family together. The petition was filed by Iryna Viktorivna Khrystoforova. Viktor is the person concerned. The witnesses are a certain Iryna Sergiivna Khrystoforova and the aforementioned Yulia.
Data from YouControl
In the courts, the Donetsk family tried to establish the fact of acceptance of the inheritance and cohabitation, but most often Viktor and Ivan Khrystoforov appear as debtors. They were also accused of fraud. For example, the World Spirit Elite company at the end of May 2022. At that time, the accounts were blocked and the property of this and other companies was seized.
Based on this, we can conclude that Viktor Khrystoforov conducted business in Ukraine after he was allegedly expelled from occupied Donetsk. According to the Aktsenty media outlet, during a search of the Alcohol Management Group company in 2021, the police found documents proving its connection to the Donetsk “republic,” but this was allegedly ignored at the time. In early July 2022, the SBU became interested in Viktor Khrystoforov. But, according to Aktsenty, on August 21, 2022, he left Ukraine through the Ustyluh checkpoint in the Volyn region as a volunteer. Only two months later, on October 28, he was put on the wanted list under Part 4 of Article 190 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. Khrystoforov was suspected of fraud.
Information on Khrystoforov on the website of the Ukrainian ministry of internal affairs
Viktor Khrystoforov, by the way, can be found on the Myrotvorets website. It states that he was a member of the Sokolinnaia Sotnia gang. However, there is no information about this group, and Khrystoforov himself said in an interview with the Russian TV channel that he only financed the Vostok battalion but allegedly did not take part in hostilities.
The most interesting thing is that while the Ukrainian side says that Khrystoforov was involved in a paramilitary formation, the Donetsk “republic” claims that he financed the Azov, Right Sector and Aidar battalions. In general, Z-bloggers have recently taken a direction towards discrediting this character, claiming that he was engaged in subversive activities in Sevastopol and was banned from entering Belarus, and now decided to return the plant, which was allegedly bankrupt in 2015.
In other words, Khrystoforov is not welcome in the occupation, he is wanted in Ukraine and in 2022, according to some media, he openly conducted pro-Russian propaganda. He cannot return to Donetsk, nor can he return to Kyiv, although all his companies are still operating, according to the registers. At the same time, a Russian TV channel presents Viktor Khrystoforov as a victim.