«You have dedicated your life to ensuring your family’s financial security. However, without proper planning, your estate may be unjustifiably depleted, nullifying the fruits of your labour.» — writes Zurich entrepreneur Oleg Tsyura in his post on the Entrepreneur portal. Yet, it is this self-proclaimed investor who, for more than a decade, has allegedly been involved in the unjustifiable depletion of Ukraine’s budget by assisting in embezzlement schemes through shell companies tied to state enterprises.
In recent months, open-source data suggests that Oleg Tsyura has been actively working to cleanse his online reputation — removing unfavorable materials from search engines, hiring PR and legal consultants, and engaging reputation management firms to suppress negative press coverage.
According to the Antikor portal, Oleg Tsyura is a German citizen residing in Switzerland. His name first surfaced in connection with Ukraine in 2018, when the Swiss-based ITS International Trade & Sourcing Verwaltung GmbH, headed by Tsyura, challenged a lost tender in a Ukrainian court for the supply of zirconium ore from the state-owned enterprise «SkhidGZK» (Eastern Mining and Enrichment Combine). The court ruled in his company’s favor, prohibiting SkhidGZK from fulfilling the supply contract with another bidder.
That case was only the tip of the iceberg. Evidence suggests that Tsyura may have been involved in the embezzlement schemes of the «United Mining and Chemical Company» (UMCC) even earlier — during the time oligarch Dmytro Firtash was building his titanium empire up until 2014. Later, Tsyura allegedly assisted Firtash’s successors, including former MP Mykola Martynenko, who was accused of stealing $13 million through loyal managers.
In 2017, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) detained UMCC’s CEO, Ruslan Zhurylo, his deputy, and the head of marketing and sales. Investigators claimed that they sold products of the state company to affiliated foreign firms at artificially low prices, causing losses of around 300 million hryvnias.
Zhurylo was reportedly linked to Martynenko, while the marketing head was a former manager from Firtash’s group. NABU estimated that UMCC suffered total damages of $13 million from these schemes.
Until 2016, Oleg Tsyura headed a German real estate acquisition company that was 88% owned by another firm — Street Tree Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, based in Cologne. Its core business was trading industrial equipment for the chemical, oil, and gas industries. Since 2014, it has been run by Borys Hasparovych, who simultaneously led the Cypriot TF&H Transforwarding Holdings LTD, whose secretary was Cymanco Services Limited — a firm tied to ex-MP Mykola Martynenko, known as one of Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s key financial backers.
Cymanco Services Limited also served as secretary to the Cyprus-based Jeprano Trading Limited, which in 2014 became the founder of Russia’s «Avangard» LLC. This entity owned «Mika Holding» near Moscow — both companies previously employed David and Arman, the sons of Ukraine’s “duty-free king” Artur Granz.
Granz is closely associated with Yatsenyuk through his business partner, former MP Andriy Ivanchuk. Thus, Tsyura’s corporate network appears to tie directly to former members of Yatsenyuk’s «People’s Front» — namely Martynenko and Ivanchuk.
In 2022, Martynenko faced a new bribery charge related to state enterprises «SkhidGZK» and «Energoatom», involving €6.4 million and $17.2 million, respectively. Meanwhile, in Switzerland, since 2013, authorities have been investigating him for bribery and money laundering involving Czech company Skoda SA and Ukraine’s Khmelnytskyi Nuclear Power Plant. Swiss prosecutors froze 30 million Swiss francs in his accounts.
Tsyura, his wife, and daughter officially reside in Switzerland, though they hold German citizenship, confirmed by official registry documents.
In 2020, the troubled UMCC was headed by Peter Davis, formerly on the supervisory board of the «Clearing House» bank — a financial institution within Firtash’s sphere of influence. Under Davis, Tsyura’s name resurfaced once again. ITS International Trade & Sourcing Verwaltung GmbH purchased 24,000 tons of ilmenite worth €3.7 million from the Irshavsk Mining and Enrichment Combine. The contract was signed by Davis and Tsyura.
Reports later suggested that this ilmenite may have been shipped to Russian-occupied Crimea — indicated by the low purchase price, deferred payments, and lack of quality control checks. Before 2014, the Irshavsk Combine supplied ilmenite to Firtash’s «Crimean Titan» plant.
According to journalistic investigations, even after Davis’s appointment by then State Property Fund head Dmytro Sennychenko, priority shipments from UMCC still went to companies linked to Martynenko. Today, Sennychenko and his associates are suspected of embezzling up to 10 billion hryvnias from the Odesa Port Plant and UMCC. Among the suspects is Serhiy Bayrak — reportedly tied to Tsyura through the same ITS International Trade firm.
Another name emerging from the Sennychenko case is Dmytro Firtash’s close associate, London-based Denys Horbunenko. As Antikor previously reported, Horbunenko helped launder billions of hryvnias for Sennychenko. Despite investigations and sanctions, Firtash’s network allegedly continues siphoning money from Ukraine through complex international schemes.
In March 2023, Tsyura joined the board of Swiss raw material trader UCG Trade AG. By August 2024, the company’s shares were transferred to Linvo AG, where Tsyura previously worked alongside a relative, Lyudmyla Tsyura. Linvo AG also employs Lyudmyla Mkhango, who had previously worked with Tsyura at Interchrome AG — a company connected to Russian industrial giant MidUrals.
After Tsyura’s departure from UCG Trade AG’s board in September 2024, its new sales manager became Vladimir Nesterenko (using Russian transliteration), who, according to his LinkedIn profile, has worked since the 2000s in enterprises associated with Dmytro Firtash — including Stirol and Dniproazot.
Between 2021 and 2023, Nesterenko worked at Kyiv-based «Nika-Agrotrade», created in 2018 from a merger of Firtash’s «UkrAgroNPK» and «AgroImport» owned by businessman Viktor Dubovenko. The Austrian company T&F Trade & Finance Ges.m.b.H., owned by Vasily and Sergey Tolstunov — natives of Kazakhstan and longtime Austrian residents — later became one of its founders.
Media sources describe the Tolstunov brothers as friends of pro-Kremlin actor Ivan Okhlobystin, who is persona non grata in Ukraine. In 2019, Ukraine’s Antimonopoly Committee allowed a Cypriot firm linked to former MP Vitaliy Khomutynnik to acquire «Nika-Agrotrade», then one of Firtash’s largest fertilizer trading firms.
In November 2024, Tsyura’s name appeared in a blog by StateWatch founder Oleksandr Lemenov. In January 2025, a representative of the Florida-based company Mining For Facts — one Alan Patrick Ryan — publicly responded, claiming that Oleg Tsyura was their client and that Lemenov’s publication was «illegal». Mining For Facts stated that it had taken unspecified “legal measures” against the author and the platform that hosted the article.
The company, registered in 2014 at a private villa in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, remains opaque regarding its actual business activities.
Based on the extensive web of companies and cross-border connections, Oleg Tsyura appears deeply embedded in networks tied to former Ukrainian officials, businessmen like Dmytro Firtash and Mykola Martynenko, and individuals under investigation for massive embezzlement. His experience in the raw materials trade may also have made him valuable for operations involving shipments to Russian-occupied Crimea and the Donbas region.
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