Why the main Shahed negotiator’s family still have European passports
On January 19th, 2023, while Ukraine was being bombarded by Shahed aircraft with the goal to stall Ukrainians, a helicopter, carrying the Russian president’s helper, Igor Levitin, landed on a football field in Iran.
This very person is known as the lead negotiator concerning Russia obtaining Iranian unmanned aerial vehicles.
Ukraine approached its western allies with a revelation that implied the Shaheds consist of many parts produced in the US, Germany, Canada and Japan. There is, however, another issue; Levitin’s relatives lead their business within the EU and all have EU citizenships. Investigations performed by Navalny and co. floated the fact that, apart from businesses in Russia, the Levitin family owns and operates a hotel business in Montenegro, real estate and even an elderly care facility in the Czech Republic.
All the way in 2019, Igor’s brother, Leonid and his wife both acquired Maltese citizenships. With this in mind, the author has reason to believe that this happened as a result of bribery.
In November, 2019, Levitin’s acquaintance, an Austrian fixer named Vyacheslav Rezchikov, transferred €3.2 million to the account of Celine Siantar. This was registered as giving back a loan.
Celine had just finished dentistry school and was expecting a government position, which she later received from Malta’s vice prime minister. Under no circumstances is it impossible to imagine that she, as a student, would grant a multimillion-dollar loan, which Rezchikov was supposedly returning to her with this payment. Moreover, as indicated in the payment, 3.2 million euros is only part of the "debt" that Rezchikov had to return to the Maltese student, who is the daughter of the head of the service and, as the local press slandered, the mistress of the Deputy Prime Minister of Malta Fearne.
Deputy Prime Minister Chris Fearne himself is simply a laureate of all possible corruption awards. First, Firne was the Parliamentary Secretary for Health Affairs in the office of the Minister of Energy and Health Konrad Mizzi - the hero of the "Panama papers", who was banned from entering the United States in December 2021.
Firne then came under the patronage of the Prime Minister of Malta, Joseph Muscat, who was named 'Person of the Year' in 2019 by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) due to the rise in crime and corruption in Malta.
Issuing so-called "golden passports" to Russians was a common practice for many EU countries.
After the start of the full-scale invasion, the European Commission ordered the withdrawal of residence permits for citizens of the Russian Federation and Belarus, who were under sanctions, and the cancellation of receiving golden passports.
For understanding, only Cyprus earned 9.7 billion euros from the sale of passports in 2007-2020.
But Malta continues to trade them and has already earned the EU investigation.
Of course, Russians also use other loopholes to get to the EU - buying the same passports in Montenegro and Vanuatu.
But is Ukraine actually doing anything to prevent Russians from buying European passports?
From informal communication at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I understood that there are currently no purposeful movements.
According to my information, after publications in the media and appeals by deputies, OPU adviser Podolyak sent an appeal to the GPU, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with a request to take measures to stop the trade in EU passports for Russian oligarchs and officials and their family members.
"I would like to share with you my concern about the blatant fact that the countries of the European Union for many years have granted and continue to grant today, during the cannibalistic war unleashed by Russia, their citizenship and issue European passports to persons close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, officials, MPs and businessmen involved in the aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, which allows these "activists" to live in EU countries and move freely through European countries, despite the sanctions applied to them", - says the address of the adviser to the head of the OP.
Podoliak mentions that Cypriot passports received in recent years:
Boris Nevzorov - member of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation;
Oleksandr Prokopyev - member of the State Duma of the Russian Federation;
Leonid Symanovsky - member of the State Duma of the Russian Federation;
Murad Kerimov - Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology;
God Nisanov is a billionaire who directly organised and financed fictitious referendums in the
occupied territories of Ukraine;
Zarakh Iliev - billionaire, partner of Nisanov and one of the financiers of the aggression;
Oleksiy Kuzmichev - member of the supervisory board of the sub-sanctioned Alfabank;
Oleksandr Klyachyn - the owner of the Azimut Hotels chain;
Volodymyr Khristenko - son of ex-vice prime minister Khristenko;
Mykhailo Kuzovlev - first deputy chairman of the state corporation VEB.RF;
and thousands of others.
"When the world community drew attention to the corrupt activities of Cyprus officials in selling European citizenship to citizens of a terrorist state, the criminal organisation of the Russian Federation chose another country to obtain European passports - the Republic of Malta. Today, Malta is the main country supplying European passports for Putin's entourage. Thanks to the actions of the officials of the Republic of Malta, hundreds of Russian high-ranking officials and members of their families will acquire European citizenship and defiantly circumvent world sanctions," Podoliak points out.
In the letter, he asked the Security Service of Ukraine, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the National Police to start communication with law enforcement agencies of the European Union states and international organisations of police cooperation and EPU Europol in order to identify citizens of the Russian Federation who acquired citizenship of the European Union countries with illegally obtained funds.
At the request of Censor.NET, the Ministry of Internal Affairs reported that it had sent a corresponding appeal to Europol and is now waiting for a response.
Podolyak also asked the embassies to turn to the governments and embassies of the EU countries with a proposal to investigate as soon as possible how many passports were issued to those Russians who violate the norms of international law and support and finance Russian aggression, with the aim of further annulment of citizenship and withdrawal of passports of such persons.
In particular, the adviser to the head of the President's Office is especially keen to pay attention to the actions of Malta, Latvia, Bulgaria and Cyprus.
Despite his dislike for Censor.NET, Podolyak pays special attention to the story of the Levitins obtaining citizenship.
Many people may think that the passport investigation is not that important. They say that financial monitoring should not allow sanctioned Russians to do business anyway.
But now the Levitins are simply rewriting property in Montenegro and the Czech Republic for pounds. Recently, the Levitins began to dispose of foreign assets, transferring them to businessman Karen Vanetsyan, the brother of the former head of the National Security Service of Armenia, Artur Vanetsyan. We are talking about apartments in the Czech Karlovy Vary and a tourist complex on the coast of Montenegro - where, as "Important Stories" found out, Levitin's brother companies were going to build 16 hectares of the sea coast with villas and a hotel.
Secondly, the story of the transfer of money from the intermediary Levitin Rezchikov is a pure corruption crime.
Our Western partners rightly criticise us for tolerating corruption, but having corrupt officials among them, they also allow Russians to calmly attack Ukrainian cities with Shaheds, but at the same time live not in their khatsapetovkas, but in comfortable Europe.
Therefore, our Ministry of Foreign Affairs should obviously demand that Malta take away Levitin's passport, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs should monitor how the investigation of the embezzlement is going there.
Tetiana Nikolayenko, Censor.NET
