In the spring of 2024, there were loud statements about the failure of the construction of fortifications in the Kharkiv region bordering the Russian Federation. Then the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky had to go to the region and see with his own eyes what was happening on the border with the aggressor country. The head of the Kharkiv region, Oleg Sinegubov, justified himself by the actual impossibility of building fortifications on the first lines due to constant shelling and danger to life. However, journalists found someone who could really benefit from the disruption of the construction of defensive structures, and it turned out to be former MP from the Opposition Platform - For Life Igor Abramovich.

From January to May 2024, the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration concluded about 220 contracts for the construction of fortifications. The total amount is UAH 51 billion. Such data is contained in the Prozorro procurement system. The contracts were carried out on an uncontested basis and were signed directly with companies.


Of these, 81 contracts worth UAH 687.4 million as of May 2024 were signed with Project Alliance LLC. It is noteworthy that in June of this year, the company did not sign a single new contract for the construction of protective structures in the Kharkiv region. But in July 2024, it received orders in this area for as much as UAH 126 million.


Project Alliance LLC was established in June 2021. Its founder was Igor Rozhkov. His brother Nikita Rozhkov is a former deputy of the Kharkiv District Council, and he is also a co-founder of the SPB-1 company, which has also signed many contracts with the Kharkiv region authorities for the construction of protective structures recently.


According to the Kharkiv Anti-Corruption Center, Igor Rozhkov, like his relative Svetlana Rozhkova, who was a co-founder of the company rebuilding the apartment building destroyed by the Russian missile, are citizens of the Russian Federation.

And this is not the only Russian trace on this company. Another co-founder of OOO "Proektny Alyans" is Aleksandr Sorochinsky. His business partner in the companies "Godsend" and "Khartplastmass" is Russian citizen Oleg Lukin. This is reported, among other things, in Ukrainian registers.


Although the first company is currently in the process of ceasing operations, Russian Lukin continued to manage it until May 2022, when the Russian Federation had already been conducting a full-scale invasion of Ukraine for six months. LLC "Khartplastmass", which Lukin founded from 2012 to 2016, continues to operate to this day.


From November 2022 to October 2023, another founder of Project Alliance LLC was Victoria Pismak. The same person was the founder of Tech-Inkom LLC, which since the beginning of 2024 has signed 29 contracts with the Department of Housing and Public Utilities and Fuel and Energy Complex of KhOVA for the construction of fortifications in the Kharkiv region for the amount of UAH 545.7 million.

Viktoria Pismak is closely connected to the former deputy mayor of Kharkov, Andriy Rudenko, through a number of companies. In the Kharkov mayor’s office, he was responsible for the city’s defense issues. Rudenko was fired in the midst of a scandal over the failure to build fortifications. On the eve of his dismissal, the Bureau of Economic Security exposed a company close to Rudenko’s wife attempting to embezzle budget funds during the construction of defensive structures in the Kharkov region.


"The company has repeatedly won tenders held by one of the departments of the Kharkiv Regional State Administration. In total, the company received contracts for the construction of fortifications worth more than UAH 240 million. It was established that ... the company transferred UAH 20.45 million to the accounts of an individual - an entrepreneur registered in January 2024. The said person actually works as an administrator of a food establishment, that is, has nothing to do with construction. At the same time, after receiving the funds, it tried to transfer them to the account of a company that may be associated with the activities of the so-called conversion centers," the BEB statement said in March 2024.

In May 2024, the Chairman of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration Oleg Sinegubov had to justify the improper construction of defensive structures and the participation of dubious firms in this process. According to him, KHOVA is responsible for the so-called third line of defense, and the maps and diagrams are sent to the region directly from the Ministry of Defense. But the construction of these structures is extremely dangerous, because the Kharkiv region is under constant shelling by the occupiers. This is what Sinegubov attributes to the fact that large companies were not involved in the construction of the structures, but simply those who agreed to risk both their profits and their lives.

But Sinegubov is silent about one important detail. The person responsible for fortifications in the Kharkiv region is his deputy Mikhail Kharnam. He comes from the construction business, on the one hand, he was quite close to the now deceased mayor of Kharkiv Gennady Kernes, and on the other hand, to the current resident of Monaco, former deputy from the banned Opposition Platform - For Life Igor Abramovich.

In 2019, when Kharnam was among the founders of Budivelnik LLC, the company won state tenders worth UAH 293 million, in 2020 – UAH 245 million, and in 2021 – UAH 109 million.


According to media and Telegram channels, it is Harnam who is being prepared by law enforcement officials to be charged with disrupting the construction of fortifications in the Kharkiv region. According to sources, he was informed of this by phone by former MP Igor Abramovich, who retains enormous influence on the Kharkiv region despite his permanent residence in Monaco.

Abramovich is called the curator of the tobacco smuggling market. At the same time, he is a business partner of the Russian-Ukrainian sanctioned businessman Pavel Fuks. Abramovich’s father-in-law, Semyon Sirota, is a former deputy mayor of Kharkiv, responsible for housing and communal services. Sirota held the position of director of the construction communal enterprise "HRBP". In 2016, he was suspected in a case of probable theft of more than 5 million hryvnia from the Kharkiv budget for the purchase of cars. The case dragged on for eight years, and only in April 2024, just in the wake of the scandal with the disruption of the construction of protective structures in the Kharkiv region, Abramovich’s father-in-law was acquitted by the court.


Abramovich and Fuchs were close friends of the late Kharkiv mayor Gennady Kernes, and both retained their influence when Igor Terekhov took over the city. Through the aforementioned Kharkiv leaders, Abramovich is also acquainted with the recently dismissed Andrey Rudenko. The same one whose manager Victoria Pismak was the founder of the companies involved in the failed construction of fortifications in the Kharkiv region. The one who was a business partner in companies of citizens of the Russian Federation.

The circle is closed, and the real beneficiary of the construction and the participation of dubious companies in it has been found. It is Igor Abramovich who can be considered the one in whose interests it is that defensive structures on the border with the Russian Federation are built exclusively on paper, and money from the budget drips into a wallet from which the former deputy can live his best life in Monaco.