Aiding Russia and shadow schemes worth millions: how vodka tycoon Evgeniy Chernyak paid taxes to the Kremlin for years but avoided trial thanks to his protectors in Ukraine

Aiding Russia and shadow schemes worth millions: how vodka tycoon Evgeniy Chernyak paid taxes to the Kremlin for years but avoided trial thanks to his protectors in Ukraine

“Law enforcement has dismantled every safeguard we had. What investment climate can exist when those in the rear see the war as a way to enrich themselves? Why target the very entrepreneurs who stand with their country?”

«While the best people are dying defending their Country, rear looters see the war as a source of personal enrichment! Things will end badly for you, you corrupt devils, do you even realize that this is theft on blood?»

As reported by «Oligarch», these and other similar angry posts on Facebook at the beginning of 2024 made Evgeniy Chernyak, the founder of the alcohol holding Global Spirits (producer of Khortytsia and Morosha vodka), one of the most active public critics of the Ukrainian authorities.

However, the righteous anger did not last long. A little over a year passed, and by March 2025, Chernyak wrote in his post: «(Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine) Andriy Yermak and his team are doing great… Everything is moving in the right direction.»

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What happened in the life of the scandalous alcohol «baron» during this time that made him so radically change his socio-political orientation and turn from a critic of the authorities into their supporter?

Andriy Yermak

The answer to this question may be known to the Office of the Prosecutor General and the prosecutor’s office of Chernyak’s native Zaporizhzhya region. It is to them that Chernyak may owe thanks for the fact that he is no longer accused of anything, his Ukrainian assets are not being seized, and he himself is not wanted.

Greetings from the «agency»

On December 29, 2023, Chernyak’s pre-New Year mood was seriously spoiled by a Ukrainian special service. The Main Directorate of the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) in Kiev and Kiev region, headed by Artem Bondarenko, who was recently awarded the rank of Brigadier General by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, announced a suspicion against Chernyak under Part 2 of Article 28 and Article 111-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (aiding an aggressor state, committed by a group of persons by prior conspiracy). The «highlight» of the SSU’s release was an unredacted photo of Chernyak with a red stamp reading SUSPICION.

«The Security Service has gathered evidence against the owner of one of Ukraine’s largest alcohol holdings, Evgeniy Chernyak, who is suspected of financing the armed aggression of the Russian Federation. According to the investigation, despite the full-scale invasion, his companies continued to do business with the aggressor state. It has been established that in 2022 alone, the enterprises under his control transferred about 6 billion hryvnias equivalent to the Russian budget in the form of taxes and fees. It has been documented that the enterprises of the suspect, located in four countries of Central Asia and the South Caucasus, purchased industrial volumes of alcohol and other related products in Russia. During searches of the holding’s office premises in Ukraine, documents and other material evidence of illegal activities in favor of the aggressor state were found… The issue of imposing a seizure on their private and corporate property for transfer to the management of ARMA is being resolved,» the SSU stated.

The suspicion against Evgeniy Chernyak became the culmination of criminal proceedings No. 42022110000000475 dated November 30, 2022, within which the SSU investigated the activities of companies controlled by Chernyak and his family members that continued to operate in Russia after February 2022.

First and foremost, this concerned two large vodka factories: the Vologda Distillery «Russkiy Sever» (formerly «Vagron»), which Global Spirits openly acquired back in 2011, and «Rodnik i K» in the Moscow region, the purchase of which Chernyak publicly denied (referring to a deal in 2016, already after the start of Russian aggression against Ukraine in Crimea and Donbas). At the same time, the official owner of «Rodnik i K» became the Cyprus-based company Oxford AMG-77 Limited, linked to Global Spirits, which also owned «Russkiy Sever».

According to the SSU, Global Spirits owned this company until December 2016, after which it was transferred to MSD Marketing System Distribution Limited. Formally, it had no connection to Evgeniy Chernyak, but in fact, it remained in the «family,» as its beneficiary became his father, a citizen of Ukraine and Israel, Aleksandr Chernyak Sr. At the same time, both Russian factories openly produced vodka under brands owned by Global Spirits, such as «Khortytsia» and «Morosha.» Eventually, Aleksandr Chernyak Sr. also became the beneficiary of a trading house in Russia — TD «Megapolis.»

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After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, continuing business in Russia became tantamount to a crime — as it involved paying taxes to the budget of the aggressor state, which bombs and captures Ukrainian cities and villages and kills Ukrainian citizens.

But, according to the SSU, Evgeniy Chernyak was unwilling to abandon profitable assets.

Therefore, «being citizens of Ukraine and the actual owners of the Russian LLCs “Russkiy Sever,” LLC “Standart Kachestva,” LLC “Rodnik i K,” in early March 2022, while in an as yet undetermined location abroad, aware of the open Russian aggression, with the aim of preserving the property of the enterprises and for their personal selfish motives,» Evgeniy Chernyak, together with his father Aleksandr Chernyak Sr. and son Aleksandr Chernyak Jr., «decided to continue the financial and economic activities of the aforementioned business entities on the territory of the Russian Federation. At the same time, they understood that they could conduct this activity only in interaction with the aggressor state, including through the payment of taxes to the Russian budget and the supply of goods to its territory, and that these actions would indicate the transfer of material resources to representatives of the aggressor state. These individuals also reliably understood that the aforementioned actions are illegal and would cause harm to Ukraine,» the SSU concluded.

To implement this plan, according to the SSU, a nominal buyer was needed — and one was quickly found. In May 2022, Russian media reported that the alcohol factories «Russkiy Sever» and «Rodnik i K,» which produced vodka «Khortytsia,» «Morosha,» and «Pervak» from the Global Spirits portfolio of Evgeniy Chernyak, as well as TD «Megapolis,» changed ownership. Their new 100% owner became a little-known Russian citizen, Aleksandr Bespalov, whom the SSU identified as an employee of the Chernyaks’ structures in Russia and in Russian-occupied Crimea. In particular, until April 2022, he held the position of chairman of the supervisory board of LLC «Krymskiy Vinny Dom.» This company was founded in Crimea immediately after its illegal annexation and until 2017 belonged to the Cyprus-based Oxford AMG-77 Limited.

According to the SSU, Bespalov was introduced into Chernyak’s Russian companies on his orders «with the aim of concealing his criminal activities.» Numerous indirect facts point to the fictitious nature of the deal regarding the sale of Chernyak’s Russian business to Bespalov: Bespalov worked as an ordinary lawyer, lived in a modest apartment on the outskirts of Moscow, and in 2020 owed a small amount to the microcredit organization «OTP Finance,» which eventually sued him. In other words, he was not a businessman by any stretch of the imagination.

Finally, Bespalov did not pay Chernyak a penny for the acquired assets, and the terms of the sale turned out to be fantastically advantageous for him. In January 2024, «Ukrainska Pravda,» citing a source in Global Spirits, reported that Bespalov allegedly took advantage of the opportunity to «get everything» and became the sole owner of all the holding’s assets in Russia with a payment deferral of 2 years, at a price of 20% of the then business valuation — which was 500 million dollars.

Chernyak claims that Global Spirits, on the first day of Russia’s full-scale attack on Ukraine (Evgeniy himself left Ukraine in advance on February 19, 2022, and settled in the USA, and later in Poland), revoked all licenses for the production and distribution of alcoholic products on the Russian market, and the Russian factories, without alcohol brands, according to him, went bankrupt and became «a pile of scrap metal» that generates no excise taxes.

In reality, this is not entirely true: in 2022, «Russkiy Sever» successfully launched a «clone» of «Khortytsia» vodka on the Russian market under the name «Khorta,» which is still sold in Russia. Overall, 2022 was a record year for «Russkiy Sever» — both in terms of revenue (it increased by 13.4% compared to the pre-war 2021, to 4.17 billion rubles) and in the amount of taxes and fees paid to the Russian budget — 9.9 billion rubles, of which 8 billion was excise tax.

Believing that Chernyak voluntarily gave away such a «golden egg-laying hen» to an unknown person for next to nothing is extremely difficult.

The «fairy tale» ended in the summer of 2023 — at that time, Bespalov was detained in Russia and placed in a Moscow pre-trial detention center, after which he was charged with aiding terrorist activities.

Aleksandr Bespalov

Simultaneously, a criminal case was opened against Chernyak in Russia for financing terrorism — according to the investigation, he and «other persons» transferred over 500 million rubles to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Chernyak was put on the wanted list in Russia, all his Russian assets were confiscated, and Bespalov, who was not helped even by confessing to working for Chernyak, was sentenced last year to 8.5 years in a strict regime colony.

Prosecutorial Secret

In Ukraine, Evgeniy Chernyak and his son Aleksandr were also wanted — but not for long. A «ray of light» appeared for them in February 2024 — at that time, according to «Oligarch,» the First Deputy Prosecutor General Aleksey Khomenko suddenly took the «Chernyak case» from the Kiev SSU Directorate and transferred it to the investigative department of the SSU in Zaporizhzhya region under the procedural guidance of the Zaporizhzhya Regional Prosecutor’s Office.

«When the prosecutor’s office takes a case from an investigative body two months after the suspicion is served and transfers it to the region of the suspect, it may be a clear sign that the case is starting to be ‘buried,’» says a former National Police investigator. The subsequent chronology of events indirectly confirms this scenario.

On April 18, 2024, the pre-trial investigation materials regarding Evgeniy Chernyak and his son Aleksandr were separated into a separate proceeding No. 22024080000000648.

The very next day, the Zaporozhzhe «agency» suspended the pre-trial investigation in this case, which was only resumed in March 2025. After that, the prosecutor’s office intervened in the case again: on March 19, 2025, the Zaporizhzhya Regional Prosecutor’s Office, then headed by Yaroslav Mikhalchuk (like Khomenko, a native of the military prosecutor’s office), issued a resolution to close the «Chernyak case» due to the expiration of the pre-trial investigation period.

Khomenko and Tatarov

A week before this, as mentioned above, Chernyak began praising Andriy Yermak and his team (the First Deputy Prosecutor General Aleksey Khomenko was called by the media a person from the orbit of the controversial Deputy Head of Yermak’s Office, Oleg Tatarov). And on April 9, 2025, three days before Chernyak’s birthday, he and his son were finally removed from the wanted list.

However, a small «aftertaste» remained for Chernyak — regarding the SSU. Since February 2024, the founder of Global Spirits has been suing the special service, demanding the removal of the publication about the suspicion against him along with his portrait. The first round went in favor of the SSU (in November 2024, the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kiev rejected Chernyak’s claim), but in June 2025, he took revenge in the Kiev Court of Appeal, and now the parties await the final battle in the Supreme Court of Ukraine.