A sanctioned mining concern that was formerly owned by the holding company of a Ukrainian tycoon suspected of treason and remains in his family’s hands continues to operate and pays millions in taxes to Moscow, an RFE/RL investigation has determined.
Schemes, the investigative unit of RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, also found that billionaire former lawmaker Vadym Novynskiy appears to have settled in Croatia, where he has registered his residence and last year bought a large, lush property outside Zagreb.
Novynskiy, 62, is suspected of treason over alleged activities on behalf of the Russian Orthodox Church, which supports Moscow’s war against Ukraine, and he was put on a wanted list after a Kyiv court arrested him in absentia in 2025.
Vadym Novynskiy (left) and the head of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra (Monastery of the Caves), Metropolitan Pavlo
A magnate whose wealth is estimated at $1.2 billion by Forbes magazine, Novynskiy owns Smart Holding Group, which in turn owned the Balaklava Mining Management Company, or BALAKLAVSKOE RU, from 2006 to 2014, the year Russia occupied and seized control of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. In 2014, ownership of BALAKLAVSKOE RU shifted to Kagerol Holdings Limited, a Cyprus-based firm owned by Novynskiy’s half brother Ashot Malkhasyan.
In 2022, the year Russia launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine imposed sanctions on BALAKLAVSKOE RU, which specializes in the extraction and processing of limestone and gypsum stone. In January 2023, the State Bureau of Investigation opened a probe into the company on suspicion of subversive activities, terrorism, and high treason.
According to investigators, BALAKLAVSKOE RU has repeatedly supplied materials to state-owned Russian companies and has also been involved in several Russian state infrastructure projects, including two airports and a major highway in occupied Crimea as well as Patriot Park, a military theme park outside Moscow.
War Chest
Russian registry data examined by Schemes shows that the enterprise paid more than 2 billion rubles ($26.7 million) in taxes from 2022 to 2025. In addition, accounts from employees and local media reports indicate that Russian military equipment has been repaired on the grounds of BALAKLAVSKOE RU during the full-scale invasion, now in its fifth year.
A BALAKLAVSKA RU quarry in Crimea, with inset showing mining equipment. Schemes found evidence the company has been paying Russian taxes and otherwise supporting Moscow's war against Ukraine.
In 2024, a member of the Russian-imposed legislature in the Crimean city of Sevastopol from the Kremlin-controlled United Russia party who signed up to fight against Kyiv recorded a video message in which he offered “a special thank you…for the fact that your team, together with your enterprise as a whole, provides active support for the fighters in the zone of the ‘Special Military Operation,’” which is the Russian state’s mandatory term for its war against Ukraine.
“There hasn’t been a single instance where soldiers from the front lines who reached out to you didn’t receive help,” he said.
According to YouControl, a Ukrainian online corporate data monitor, Malkhasyan is associated with Smart Holding as the owner of one of the companies under its umbrella. Schemes’ requests for comment from Malkhasyan, sent by e-mail and messenger app, have gone unanswered.
Schemes also sent Novynskiy a request for comment on Malkhasyan’s business activities in Crimea and whether he has any influence on them, as well as on the origin of funds used for what official documents and media reports indicate was the purchase of a luxury home in Croatia for 10.5 million euros ($12.3 million).
Novynskiy’s legal representative, Spanish attorney Gonzalo Boye, stated in response to questions from Schemes that Novynskiy “is a staunch supporter of Ukraine" and that "he has long been subject to sanctions by the Russian Federation, which itself precludes any substantiated claims regarding his alleged affiliation with Russian entities.”
However, the lawyer’s response offered no evidence for the claim that Novynskiy is currently under Russian sanctions. A Russian government document indicates that sanctions against him were lifted in 2020, and there is no sign that any have been imposed since then.
Relations With Russia
Novynskiy, a native of Russia who obtained Ukrainian citizenship in 2012, was elected to Ukraine’s parliament in 2019 as member of the Opposition Platform – For Life, a major pro-Russian party that was banned after the full-scale invasion. In 2023, the state seized assets worth more than 10 billion hryvnyas ($228 million) while investigating him on suspicion of being an “accomplice of an aggressor country.”
He was later placed under formal suspicion of treason for his alleged role as the “curator of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine” and failure to pay taxes of 4 billion hryvnyas ($91 million). In 2025, a Kyiv court ordered his arrest in absentia in connection with the treason charge, and he was later put on a wanted list.
In late March of this year, Novynskiy gave an interview to Germany’s COMPACT-TV in late March in which he criticized Zelenskyy and claimed he left Ukraine after being warned about impending criminal prosecution.
Vadym Novynskiy in Zurich in 2023
A Ukrainian security service officer “warned me in advance that the command was to leave, because Zelenskyy demands every day that we arrest you. That's why I had to be abroad,” he said.
Asked about that claim, Zelenskyy’s office told Schemes: “We don’t really care what he says” and referred to Novynskiy as “an oligarch who...tried to turn Ukraine into Russia, went politically bankrupt and fled, and is now hiding somewhere abroad.”
In the interview, Novynskiy also said that “the most important condition for Ukraine's security is friendly relations with Russia. Everything else is nonsense. If Ukraine has good-neighborly, friendly and strategic relations with Russia, we will always have security.”
Flight From Ukraine
According to sources who have access to the corresponding informational and spoke to Schemes on condition of anonymity, Novynskiy left Ukraine in June 2022 and has not returned since.
In the COMPACT-TV interview, Novinsky said he currently lives in Europe, without naming the country. By examining footage, Schemes determined that the outlet interviewed him at the Hotel Bellevue in Opatija, Croatia.
Croatian documents examined by Schemes show that his registered place of residence is in an apartment complex in Split, Croatia, and information in the Croatian land registry and cadaster system indicates that he became the owner of a nearly 7-acre estate in Samobor, near the capital, Zagreb.
The property in Samobor was described in a sale announcement as "one of the most beautiful residential buildings in Croatia.
It features a villa of over 1,400 square meters and a smaller residential structure as well as a vineyard and gardens, a swimming pool, a golf area, several outbuildings, and a 200-square-meter wine cellar. Croatian media outlet Jutarnji list reported in 2025 that Novynskiy purchased it from a local businessman for 10.5 million euros ($12.3 million).
A sale announcement from 2023 called it "one of the most beautiful residential buildings in Croatia."