In March 2016, Viktor Medvechuk transferred all ownership rights of his business entities to his wife Oksana Marchenko. Among such entities there is a chain of companies registered in Cyprus, Malta, United Kingdom, Russia, and Ukraine. On September 18, 2018 Viktor Medvedchuk in his
comment to Radio Free Europe told:
"My wife is not doing business, she is owning business, while I am managing it. Why I can not own business? Because my "beloved" americans imposed sanctions on me in March 2014. This caused peculiarities to business, which now belongs to my family". This comment followed the journalistic
investigation "Oil for Putin's Crony" released by Schemes investigative reporting project on September 6, 2018.
Oksana Marchenko had a long career as a TV show presenter. Specifically, in 2009-2014 she was presenter of "Ukraine has a talent" TV show at STB channel, in 2010-2016 she worked as presenter of "X-factor" TV project, since December 2017 she became host and team leader of reality show "Time to build" at Inter TV channel. Thus, Oksana Marchenko does not have professional skills to run and/or control complex business chains, including those engaged in extraction of oil in Russia.
On July 20, 2017 Oksana Marchenko has become a sole shareholder of Cyprus company
Tumillon Investments LTD, which through another Cyprus company
Ventolor Holding LTD controls 50,1% of shares in Russian legal entity
NZNP Trade LLC since August 16, 2016 .
On June 03, 2015 NZNP Trade LLC became
a winner at the state competition for the right to extract oil at Gavrykivske oil field at Khanty-Mansiysk district in Russia. Gavrykivske field is one of largest oil fields in the district
having reserves of about 40 mln tons of oil. NZNP Trade LLC paid 6,692,000,000 Rubles for the extraction right, which was just 2 millions higher than the expected price of the auction.
The competition procedure
contained a strange discriminatory clause, requiring the potential winner to process the extracted oil from Gavrykivske field at the Russian oil processing factories located in Rostov district. Rostov district is located on the South- West of Russia, which is about 2,500 kilometres away from Gavrykivskse field, located at North-East of Russian Siberia. The only company in Russia which was eligible to win the competition became NZNP Trade LLC, which owned Novoshakhtinsk Oil Processing Factory, the only oil processing factory in Rostov district.
Novoshakhtinsk Oil processing Factory is located in Novoshakhtinsk, 18 kilometres away from Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia (so-called Donetsk People's Republic and Lugansk People's Republic - DNR/LNR). Experts in Russia and Ukraine suggest that oil products from Novoshakhtinsk factory
might be illegally sold to the occupied territories.
RN-Uvatneftegaz, a subsidiary of Rosneft, Russian state-owned company giant managed by Igor Sechin, a close ally of Vladimir Putin, first contested the competition because of the discriminatory requirements, however, strangely, later
withdrew its claim.
NZNP Trade LLC
started active exploration and extraction works at Gavrykivske field in late 2017, right after the ownership structure of the company changed, and Oksana Marchenko became shareholder of Cyprus company Tumillon Investments LTD.
Oksana Marchenko through the chain of companies also became a controller of TD NZNP LLC, a sister company of NZNP Trade LLC operating in Rostov district. TD NZNP LLC is licensed for trading oil products. It is a 100% subsidiary of another Russian company
Yug Energo LLC. Since
December 25, 2017, 60% shares of Yug Energo LLC belong to Cyprus company Ventolor Investments LTD, which is wholly owned by Cyprus Ventolor Holding LTD mentioned above in section 4.