Portnov from Spain signed his estate near Kyiv over to his children - media
In early April 2024, pro-Russian activist Andrii Portnov, who is under US sanctions and has left Ukraine, signed a large estate near Kyiv, in the elite village of Kozyn, over to his children.
The re-registration of property in Ukraine was carried out by lawyers close to Portnov under a power of attorney, which he certified in January with a notary in Madrid (Spain). The Radio Liberty project "Schemes" received a deed of gift dated April 3, 2024, Censor.NET reports.
The document states that a house with a total area of more than 1000 square meters and a 0.65-hectare plot of land in a gated cottage community on the banks of the Dnipro River was received in equal parts by Portnov's four minor children as a gift from Portnov.
The agreement states that when the property was re-registered with a Kyiv notary, the children's interests were personally represented by their mother, Portnov's common-law wife Anastasia Valiaieva. She has been a citizen of the Russian Federation since 2014, as Schemes found out. On Portnov's behalf, under a power of attorney certified in Madrid, acted lawyer Maryna Parinova, who represented Portnov in courts during his time in Ukraine.
The value of the donated property under the agreement is UAH 19 million: UAH 14.3 million for the mansion and UAH 4.7 million for the 65 acres of land under it.
In 2016, the property was registered with an offshore company from the Virgin Islands, Constellation Innovations Ltd, and was valued at €2.5 million together with the land. In 2020, the company sold the property to Andrii Portnov. The seller's representative was Andrii Verevskyi, an agribusinessman, former People's Deputy from the Party of Regions and Portnov's neighbor in Kozyn. The payment of UAH 19 million was to be made in installments later, but according to the agreement, Verevskyi was to immediately transfer the property to Portnov's use.
In 2022, the "Schemes" recorded that the estate was used by Portnov's family. At the same time, the transaction was fully closed only in January 2024, when Portnov certified his statement to a notary in Madrid that he had "fulfilled all requirements and obligations" under the agreement, and he asked to register the house and the land under it in his own name in the State Register of Real Property Rights.
This happened on April 2, 2024, and the very next day, Kyiv notary Olesia Lypovenko registered the ownership of this property in Portnov's children's name under a deed of gift.
Olesia Lypovenko is the sister of Vadym Fesenko's wife. Fesenko and Portnov are co-founders of the NGO Investment Ukraine and the law firm Corporate Technologies.
"Schemes" asked Andrii Portnov for a comment, but he did not respond to the message asking why he had signed the estate over to his children.
Tetiana Shevchuk, lawyer at the Anti-Corruption Action Center, notes that the census of property in the name of the closest relatives may indicate a person's possible desire to hide property or avoid its seizure in case of sanctions or criminal proceedings.
"It may be a common practice to hide property. The second reason may be the creation of additional transactions to make it harder to prove the illegality of the origin of the existing property. Since sanctions are individualized, it is the property of the sanctioned person that is seized. But if it is owned by third parties, it is necessary to prove the direct connection of the property with the sanctioned person or the person under criminal investigation. It is not that the state could not seize this property if it wanted to, but such restrictive measures make it much more difficult," Shevchuk says.
A few days before the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Schemes recorded several cars on the estate registered to members of Portnov's family, including Anastasia Valiaieva's brother. Two more luxury cars on the estate were equipped with so-called "cover numbers" - but the same car models, the same color and year of manufacture were registered to Valiayeva's grandmother (white Range Rover Sport) and Valiaieva's mother (black Mercedes Vito).
A few days before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Schemes recorded several cars registered to Portnov's family members on the estate's territory
On the eve of the full-scale invasion, in December 2021, the US government imposed sanctions against Portnov. They also applied to the Andrii Portnov Foundation. The sanctions include a ban on entry to the United States and the freezing of all financial assets of the sanctioned person in US banks. Portnov was included in the list of persons under the so-called Magnitsky Act. This list includes high-ranking officials involved in human rights violations and large-scale corruption.
Ukraine has not imposed sanctions against Andrii Portnov.
Earlier, Schemes reported that the family of former Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine Andrii Portnov owns a number of luxury properties in the Russian Federation. The property was purchased after the Revolution of Dignity and registered in the names of his common-law wife Anastasia Valiaieva and her mother Lidiya.
Andrii Portnov was the first deputy head of the Presidential Administration under Viktor Yanukovych. In 2018, Portnov ran the pro-Russian TV channel NewsOne. The UkraineWorld project of Internews Ukraine found in its 2020 study that Portnov actively tried to discredit the Revolution of Dignity and further pro-European reforms in the country, as well as to promote anti-Western agendas by using internet bots.
