SBU charges collaborator Volodymyr Saldo and accomplices for oil

The SBU has served a new suspicion to collaborator Volodymyr Saldo and two of his accomplices, FSB officer Serhiy Eliseev and Kherson resident Serhiy Razdrohin. They created a scheme to seize an oil transshipment facility and gas station chains during the occupation of Kherson region.

This is stated on the website of the Prosecutor General's Office.

Investigators of the Security Service of Ukraine found that in the spring of 2022, the Russian occupiers began to massively seize enterprises in the Kherson region, whose owners left the region and did not agree to cooperate with the enemy.

The interim "head" of the region, FSB officer Serhiy Eliseev, signed an order to create a fake company called Kherson Fuel Company. It was founded on the basis of the seized Kherson oil refinery and the property of enterprises operating in the fuel business.

A local resident, Serhiy Razdrohin, was appointed to manage the newly created company. After that, collaborator Volodymyr Saldo, who once again became the "gauleiter" of Kherson region, joined the process of appropriating property. They set up an illegal commission to inventory the seized property.

The occupiers illegally seized the property of dozens of well-known gas station chains, including OKKO, Avantazh, Ukrnafta, Shell, SunOil, WOG and others. In particular, OKKO-Business Partner alone suffered losses of over UAH 93 million.

Vladimir Sald, Sergey Eliseev and Sergey Razdrogin were notified in absentia of suspicion of war crimes. Razdrogin is also charged with collaboration.

After the start of the full-scale invasion, Volodymyr Saldo showed a pro-Russian position. On March 17, 2022, the Prosecutor General's Office opened treason proceedings for creating the so-called occupation "authorities" in the Kherson region.

After the temporary occupation of Kherson, he was appointed the so-called head of the city's occupation administration. In June 2022, Saldo received Russian citizenship from the occupation administration of Kherson. In September of the same year, he participated in a pseudo-referendum for the so-called "accession to the Russian Federation.

SBI officers, in cooperation with the Kherson Regional Prosecutor's Office, searched the main collaborator in Kherson region. Russian documents with direct instructions to commit crimes against Ukraine were found in his estate and at the place of residence of the traitor's accomplices.

On May 11, 2023, the HACC confiscated Volodymyr Saldo's property. On November 8, 2023, the Malynovskyi District Court of Odesa sentenced Saldo. He was found guilty of high treason, collaboration and denial of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation and sentenced to 15 years in prison. On May 10, 2024, the Odesa Court of Appeal upheld the sentence of the so-called "governor of the Kherson region." On September 10, 2024, Saldo was once again sent enced to 15 years in prison in Odesa.

According to the Center for Public Investigations, despite the fact that the collaborator's family owns apartments, houses, and cottages in Kherson, Kyiv, and Crimea, no business is registered to Volodymyr Saldo himself. At the same time, his daughter, Iryna Saldo, is officially a wealthy lady who is still doing business abroad (the family connection is indicated by posts on social media).

Ірина Глухова