Russian oligarch's associate Kiper's billion-dollar assets did not earn a year's worth of money

The assets of Russian businessman Ihor Naumets, which were transferred a year ago to businessman Serhiy Shapran, whom journalists associate with the head of the Odesa Regional Military Administration, Oleh Kiper, have not started working for Ukraine in a year.

According to journalists from Radio Liberty' s Schemes project, the property in question is worth more than UAH 1 billion, including granite and sand quarries in Zhytomyr and Kyiv regions, tile and explosives factories, dozens of land plots, railroad cars, and special equipment.

Some of the quarries, according to journalists, are flooded, most workers have been laid off, and debts to the budget and the staff exceed UAH 20 million. In 2025, the National Agency for Asset Recovery and Management (ARMA) began preparations for asset management, but there are no real results yet. According to preliminary estimates, the property could bring millions of hryvnias to the state every month.

"The confiscation has not taken place. The Ministry of Justice claims to have found Naumets' assets, but they are still establishing the grounds for their recovery. The draft law on criminal liability for circumventing sanctions was passed by the Verkhovna Rada in the first reading only this summer. Thus, the case, which could have become an example of the state's decisive policy towards Russian assets, on the contrary, demonstrated its weaknesses: a businessman associated with an influential official received strategic property instead of the state," the publication notes.

A year ago, Skhemy journalists exposed how the assets of Russian businessman Igor Naumets were transferred to a private owner, bypassing the state, despite NSDC sanctions and arrests.

The new owner is a businessman from Brovary, Serhiy Shapran, whom journalists link to the former Kyiv prosecutor and now the head of the Odesa Regional Administrative Court, Oleh Kiper. It was this connection that caused the greatest resonance: assets that could have been confiscated by the state and used for the needs of the army ended up in the hands of a person from the close circle of an influential official.

According to the publication, the transfer became possible after Pechersk Court Judge Serhiy Vovk lifted the seizure of the property and the prosecutor withdrew the appeal. The legislation still does not provide for liability for circumventing sanctions, which allowed the transaction to take place with impunity.

Following the publication of the investigation, law enforcement became more active: 18 people, including Shapran and Naumets, were served with suspicion notices as part of the "Granit" operation. In June 2025, Shapran was detained in Lviv, but he was released on bail, which the court reduced from 100 million to 5 million hryvnias. Ihor Naumets was put on the wanted list, and according to journalists, he is in London.

Кирило Бойко