Ukrainian businessman Pavel Klymets, the owner of the Olymp group of vodka-making companies and former member of fugitive ex-president Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, has been detained in Moscow by detectives of the Investigative Committee of Russia on suspicion of large-scale bribery, Interfax reported on April 27, referring to Russian newspaper Kommersant.
“The visit of the politician and multimillionaire to Moscow is connected with his attempt to discuss the fate of his assets in the Donbas, control of which he lost after the start of hostilities in 2014,” was reported.
According to Interfax, Klymets has lost access to 40 percent of his assets in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region because they are in Russian-occupied areas.
“Recently, Pavel Anatolyevych (Klymets) has repeatedly received offers to give away or sell at a very low price a part of this business (in the occupied territories),”report says.
The Olymp group confirmed the businessman’s arrest in Moscow. Klymets’ lawyers have already appealed against the decision at Moscow City Court. Hearings have not yet been scheduled and the businessman will remain in custody for now.
The 51-year old Klymets was previously one of the top 100 richest businessmen in Ukraine. However, according to Dragon Capital investment fund, by the end of 2018, businessman’s fortune had dropped to $99 million.
At the same time, Klymets’ assets include the construction company Atlant with 2 million square meters of housing, the Bikorm grain processing plant, the Malinovsky cable plant, the Malinovsky Glassworks factory with a capacity of 87,600 tons of products per year, and the largest shopping center in Zaporizhia, a Ukrainian city of 800,000 people on the Dnipro River.
The businessman’s Prime liquor factory, with a capacity of 621 million bottles per year, has been the subject of scandal, with the investigative journalist project Nashi Groshi claiming the factory illegally used alcohol made by state alcohol producer Ukrspirt.
