Who is Tymur Mindich – from Kolomoiskyi’s almost-son-in-law to energy overseer and NABU case figure
A figure in the NABU case on embezzlement of state funds, Tymur Mindich is currently in Austria. This was reported on Friday by sources at Censor.NET. This news emerged amid numerous statements by deputies and activists that the potential serving of a notice of suspicion to Mindich is precisely what set off a chain reaction in the form of curbing the powers of SAPO and NABU.
Journalists last mentioned Mindich in late June, when ZN.UA sources said the businessman had travelled to Austria to persuade Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Chernyshov to come back.
Censor.NET has sought to determine who Mindich is and why so much seems to revolve around him.
Almost Kolomoiskyi's son-in-law and messenger
Mindich first appeared in political news in April 2018, purely by chance. Journalist Mykhailo Tkach was filming a report on Ihor Kolomoiskyi’s life in Switzerland and on how the oligarch was cultivating ties with President Petro Poroshenko’s inner circle, meeting alternately with former Presidential Administration head Borys Lozhkin and then Prosecutor General Yurii Lutsenko. One segment of the story focused on Kolomoiskyi’s birthday, whose venue the reporter identified from photos of the guests.
And who was among those guests? None other than Tymur Mindich, Kolomoiskyi’s partner in several ventures and a co‑owner of Kvartal 95.
Between 2018 and 2019, Mindich was repeatedly spotted by journalists traveling to see Kolomoiskyi in Israel, already being referred to at that time as a liaison between the future president and the oligarch.
In May, oligarch Ihor Kolomoiskyi returned to Ukraine from Israel accompanied by Andrii Shypko, a deputy from the Revival party, and Tymur Mindich, co-owner of Kvartal 95.
During that period, Mindich was also frequently seen near Kolomoiskyi’s office, including in the company of Mykhailo Kiperman, another businessman associated with the so-called Privat group.
Kolomoiskyi himself, in an interview with Ukrainska Pravda, calls Mindich a business partner in development projects who introduced him to Zelenskyy in 2008–2009. He also mentions that Mindich was once almost his son-in-law.
Sources at Censor.NET recalled that the marriage was reportedly called off because the would-be son-in-law, let’s say, somewhat overused references to the future father-in-law’s name. "So the marriage was canceled, but the partnership remained," the source said. Sometimes, according to him, Kolomoiskyi would even publicly humiliate Mindich during conversations, sending him to the kitchen for something.
Son-in-law of the fashion director of the Moscow TSUM
On August 12, 2019, Ukrainians learned who Mindich’s current wife is.
That was when the death of Alla Verber, fashion director of Moscow’s TSUM, became known.
The Telegram channel "Nezygar" reported that Alla Verber’s daughter, Kateryna, is married to Ukrainian businessman Tymur Mindich, co-owner of Green Family Ltd (Cyprus), which, until January 2019, also included the new President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, among its co-owners.
Kateryna Verber owns a Dolce & Gabbana boutique in Kyiv. Her Instagram features many more photos related to her business life and her mother than of her husband, of whom only a few pictures exist and even those mostly show him from behind.
Here’s something interesting about her mother and grandfather. Her grandfather, Abram Fleisher, held the position of department head at the Leningrad Trade House. Back in Soviet times, he collected antiques and, when leaving the USSR, managed to take several tons of property with him, something ordinary people probably couldn’t pull off.
The same Telegram channel "Nezygar" also suggested that Verber might have been a Kremlin contact, though back then only in the context of Kolomoiskyi.
Organizer of the President’s Celebration
In 2021, Mindich came into the spotlight due to hosting the president’s birthday party at his apartment. By then, the Covid lockdown had just ended, but on January 29, over 30 people were already partying at the co-owner of Kvartal’s apartment, as reported by Mykhailo Tkach in his story.
President Zelenskyy himself explained that the celebration was a surprise for him. He was at home when he was called to Mindich’s apartment, where friends were waiting. Besides Kvartal actors, the party included Andriy Yermak, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, and Oleksii Chernyshov.
Mindich’s closeness to the President’s Office was indicated not only by frequent visits but also by birthday celebrations. For example, he was among the guests at Andriy Yermak’s 50th birthday party in Huta.
In August 2021, journalists noted that amid the de-oligarchization drive, the president’s chief aide Serhii Shefir became co-founder of Next Line Production, a film production company alongside Kvartal screenwriter and producer Andrii Yakovliev and Tymur Mindich. The business partnership with oligarch Kolomoiskyi was also mentioned.
However, in February 2022, a week before the full-scale invasion, Kolomoiskyi called Mindich not so much a business partner as a "debtor" in an interview with Ukrainska Pravda. At the same time, he mentioned that Mindich is a sandek for his son, a title in Judaism equivalent to a godparent.
When asked whether Mindich is a liaison between the oligarch and the president, Kolomoiskyi replied, "He is so fixated on his own interests that other interests are completely irrelevant to him."
From amber and news to the back office of Naftogaz
In January 2022, media reported that deputies of the Volyn Regional Council voted to reorganize the communal enterprise Volynpryrodresurs into a joint-stock company. As a result, a private co-owner would enter the PJSC, which has the largest amber extraction in Ukraine and the largest copper deposit in Europe. At the same time, a company linked to Tymur Mindich, the Kyiv-based LLC "Emerald Plant", demanded the Volyn communal enterprise repay a debt of 62 million hryvnias.
Currently, according to company documentation on YouControl, the situation with this enterprise remains unresolved.
Over the years, journalists have noted that the private company Kinokit earns money producing programs for the Rada TV channel. At the end of 2021, Kinokit received 9 million hryvnias from the parliamentary channel Rada to develop concepts and new programs. At the time of signing this first million-hryvnia contract with the parliamentary channel, Kinokit underwent a change in ownership.
The owner of the company became Yuliia Drozdova, who previously served as legal advisor for Meylor Global LLP, a firm controlled by Tymur Mindich.
Starting from late 2022, media mentions of Mindich became considerably more intriguing. He is described as a person influencing processes at Energoatom and Naftogaz.
In particular, Mindich is linked to the appointment of Oleksii Chernyshov, then head of the Ministry of Regional Development, as chairman of Naftogaz. Within a few months, insiders were already hinting at a Mindich‑run back office inside the National Joint-Stock Company Naftogaz.
It should be noted that in the early years, energy issues in the President’s Office were handled by the aforementioned Serhii Shefir, primarily managing trips and balancing interests between Rinat Akhmetov and Ihor Kolomoiskyi. However, after trust in Shefir declined, these matters shifted to Mindich.
A year later, gas market participants reported a return of Yanukovych-era schemes to the company.
Yet, these remained general statements. Even now, some of Censor.NET’s sources say they know nothing about Mindich.
Other sources claim that Mindich "oversaw" then-Energy Minister Halushchenko and allegedly even assigned tasks dictating what should be done on which day.
Theft in the energy sector and fortifications
In August 2024, NABU and SAPO served a notice of suspicion on former head of Kharkivoblenergo Kostiantyn Lohvynenko and four others. According to the investigation, in 2021 the acting CEO of Kharkivoblenergo conspired with controllers of several commercial energy equipment suppliers to form an organized group, which also included other company employees.
Between April and September 2021, the head of PJSC Kharkivoblenergo ensured that two "preferred" companies won tenders to supply 11,904 units of transformer equipment and 79,425 electrical measuring instruments (meters and ancillary equipment) at a price inflated by ₴132.5 million. The cost of certain components was raised five‑fold.
In June 2025, the court arrested Leonid Mindich, Tymur Mindich’s cousin, in connection with this case. The relative was detained just before attempting to flee Ukraine.
A few weeks later, MP Yaroslav Zhelezniak revealed another story.
In April 2024, Energoatom-Trading signed a contract with the private company Svitlo Group M for the supply of a large volume of electricity. According to Zhelezniak, the company systematically underpaid for the electricity, resulting in Energoatom losing nearly 300 million hryvnias.
"Nobody in the energy market knows this company, and its nominal leadership is connected not to the energy sector but to the Judo Federation of Kharkiv region," Zhelezniak noted.
The deputy also pointed out that Energoatom additionally allowed Svitlo Group M to receive 40 million hryvnias in VAT refunds from the budget despite its debts, as reported by ZN.UA.
Zhelezniak named Jakob Hartmut, the vice president of the State Enterprise "NAEK Energoatom", as a key figure in this scheme. The deputy also noted that Hartmut has an office for an offshore company in London, located in the same building as Mindich.
At the same time, Bihus.Info released an investigation into the embezzlement of funds during fortification construction. In the Zhytomyr region, the company Navitekhservice, which previously handled reconstruction work in Kyiv region, became a contractor for fortifications but subcontracted the actual work to a shell company called Reiskvik. The latter had neither experience nor infrastructure but passed part of the funds along a chain of other companies. A certain amount of money simply "disappeared", it is impossible to trace it in the documents, journalists note.
Both companies, Global and Navitekhservice, have indirect ties to Tymur Mindich’s business group. In the first case, through Anton Samoilenko, who shares an office with a company formerly headed by Mindich. In the second case, through a co-owner of Navitekhservice whose sister manages Eventus Management, a company previously also connected to Mindich.
NABU wiretapping and disappearance
On June 20, the same Zhelezniak wrote that Mindich had left Ukraine. A few days later, ZN.UA reported that Mindich allegedly traveled to persuade Deputy Prime Minister Chernyshov to return to Ukraine.
Last week, after the adoption of Law 12414, which destroyed the independence of NABU and SAPO, journalists repeatedly wrote that Mindich himself was soon expected to be notified of suspicion.
At the same time, NABU Director Semen Kryvonos, when directly asked about Mindich, neither confirmed nor denied this information, emphasizing that they announce suspicions only based on facts, not as a preview.
According to sources from Ukrainska Pravda within business circles, investigators from the NABU and the SAPO have managed to document Mindich in the apartment at the very same address where the president’s birthday celebration took place five years ago.
Interlocutors claim the recordings may even include the president himself. However, law enforcement has not released any information about these tapes, so it remains unclear whether the conversations involved Mindich in corrupt schemes.
If the case does indeed lead to Mindich being formally charged, it would likely deal one of the biggest blows to President Zelenskyy’s reputation during his six years in power.
Tetiana Nikolaienko, Censor. NET
