Viktor Medvedchuk’s Secret Oil Refinery in Russia: How Drone Strikes Exposed a Criminal Syndicate of Ukrainian Fugitives, Serdyukov Associates, and the Gagiyev Organized Crime Group

Viktor Medvedchuk’s Secret Oil Refinery in Russia: How Drone Strikes Exposed a Criminal Syndicate of Ukrainian Fugitives, Serdyukov Associates, and the Gagiyev Organized Crime Group

The fate of former Ukrainian politicians who fled to Russia has turned out quite well. The most striking example is Vladimir Putin’s close ally Viktor Medvedchuk. After settling in Russia, he acquired his own strategic business asset — the largest oil refinery enterprise in the Kaluga region.

The other co-owners are equally interesting figures. Among them are Putin’s former university classmate, the “right-hand man” of the leader of the notorious Dzhako organized crime group, and the business partner of the son of the First Deputy Head of the GRU.

LLC “Pervy Zavod” (“First Plant”), located in the settlement of Polotnyany Zavod in the Kaluga region, processes crude oil and gas condensate. Before the war, the company had planned to modernize production facilities to manufacture Euro 5 fuel. It is the largest enterprise in the region: in the pre-war year of 2021, its revenue amounted to 38.3 billion rubles.

As our project discovered, Marina Bocharova — director and co-owner of the Kaluga refinery — is far from an ordinary manager. Behind her stands Viktor Medvedchuk himself. Bocharova had previously worked for him under her former surname, Dukhovnikova. In 2018–2019, she served as director of LLC “Yug Energo” in the Rostov region. At the time, the company’s founders were two offshore entities — Ventolor Investments Limited and Tumillon Investments Ltd. Both belonged to Ukrainian TV host Oksana Marchenko, Viktor Medvedchuk’s wife.

The refinery’s co-owners also reportedly include Viktor Khmarin, Putin’s former classmate and relative by marriage, as well as… Arkady Berkovich (also known as Artur Khabibullin). Berkovich was the “right-hand man” of Aslan Gagiyev (Dzhako), the leader of one of the bloodiest organized crime groups, and at the time was the common-law husband of Svetlana Radionova, then an employee of the prosecutor’s office and now head of Rosprirodnadzor.

In 2006, Berkovich managed to obtain an authentic certificate of his own death in Dagestan and disappeared underground. However, in 2015, he flew to Russia and was detained on charges of murdering three bankers. Thanks to influential patrons, including Radionova, Berkovich was mysteriously transferred to house arrest. Despite this, he was frequently seen in restaurants on Rublyovka. Then he disappeared again. His patrons allegedly arranged his departure abroad. Yet now he has reportedly resurfaced in Russia once more. How exactly — while still accused of three murders — and under what new name remains a mystery.

There are no random individuals among the co-owners of the Kaluga refinery. One of them is Tea Kobulashvili. Her stake in the company once amounted to 95% (2016–2017), but it gradually decreased — first to 90%, then to 50% (2022–2023), and finally to 12% in 2023, after which it was pledged to VEB. Kobulashvili has no other business interests in Russia, but she has a notable background and a fellow countryman relative named Koba Tskhadaia. According to leaked data, they once used the same email address and traveled together from Moscow on vacations.

In the 2000s, Koba Tskhadaia conducted business with the well-known criminal figure Jorge Portilla-Sumin (also known as Georgy Panish). In the late 1980s, Portilla-Sumin received a 14-year prison sentence for murdering his stepfather and a housekeeper, serving his sentence in Georgia. There, he became close to crime boss Jaba Ioseliani and his associate Tengiz Kitovani — highly influential Georgian figures of the 1990s and 2000s. It is believed that afterward, Jorge represented the interests of Georgian organized crime in both the United States and Russia.

Last year in Russia, Portilla-Sumin was sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison for embezzlement involving CJSC “Klimovsky Specialized Ammunition Plant.” The sentence was handed down in absentia because, unsurprisingly, authorities could not locate him.

According to leaked data, Tea Kobulashvili herself was simultaneously a founder of “Pervy Zavod” in 2016 while also employed by LLC “Neftegaz Leasing” (now called “NGL”), which belonged to the Luxembourg-based company INTERNATIONAL HOLDING AND FINANCING S.A. At the time, the company generated annual revenues of 300–360 million rubles while reporting only losses to Russian tax authorities. Beginning in 2022, however, its revenue suddenly increased dramatically — reaching 3.4 billion rubles by the end of 2025.

The Luxembourg company INTERNATIONAL HOLDING AND FINANCING S.A. was managed by the British firm Global Equity Investment Ltd, whose controlling person was 52-year-old Georgian-Swiss citizen Maka Asatiani. She is a well-known Georgian designer and also the mother of businessman Kakha Zhordania, who conducts oil business in Russia together with a highly interesting business partner.

Currently, Kakha owns 25% of the Russian oil trader “SDO-Logistic,” while 51% belongs to Sergey Alekseev, son of First Deputy Head of the GRU Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseev (who was shot at in February this year).

Asatiani’s first husband and Kakha Zhordania’s father is former football player Merab Zhordania. Former footballer and current Georgian president Mikheil Kavelashvili once played on his team. In Russia, the elder Zhordania has many high-ranking acquaintances, one of them being Roman Abramovich.

At the same time, Georgian entrepreneur Maka Asatiani also has a second husband, Konstantin (Kote) Gogelia — a well-known businessman in Russia. Until spring 2024, he directly owned a stake in LLC “KMK,” a subsidiary of “Pervy Zavod.” Recently, this subsidiary went bankrupt under highly questionable circumstances.

Like Portilla-Sumin, Gogelia also “worked” in the 1990s for crime boss Jaba Ioseliani and his paramilitary group “Mkhedrioni.” He is believed to have overseen a major oil depot in Georgia, which later burned down, with the fire allegedly used to write off the disappearance of significant assets.

After moving to Russia, Gogelia entered the close circle of then-Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov. With Serdyukov’s help, Gogelia’s company “Kommandit Service” (owned through the Swiss company Progetra) acquired the Northern Fleet fueling base of the Russian Navy — an oil transshipment terminal in the settlement of Mokhnatkina Pakhta in Russia’s Murmansk region.

In the 2000s, Gogelia traded oil for Sibneft, and his “Northern Cargo Company” (SGK) had a direct contract with Gazpromtrans. Incidentally, Tea Kobulashvili also worked for SGK during that period.

As for the Kaluga “international” refinery, it began facing major problems after 2022. The enterprise became a target of Ukrainian drone attacks several times, forcing production cuts and extensive repairs so severe that in 2023 they affected the industrial performance of the entire Kaluga region. “Pervy Zavod” accounts for more than 50% of the region’s shipped industrial output.

Khmarin, Medvedchuk, and Gogelia had to abandon their agreement with Russia’s Ministry of Energy on refinery modernization and expansion plans, despite having obtained court approval for the project. Local residents opposed the expansion because the refinery is located just 200 meters from a school.

Nevertheless, in the spring of last year, “Pervy Zavod” announced the launch of some sort of upgraded production. According to a source, the equipment had been supplied in circumvention of sanctions with the assistance of Berkovich, but it never functioned properly.

The refinery’s subsidiary “KMK” (where Konstantin Gogelia was among the founders) has been undergoing bankruptcy proceedings since 2024 with debts exceeding 100 million rubles. Its creditors included VEB.RF, headed by Igor Shuvalov, and the military-linked PSB Bank. However, they transferred the debt claims to a shell company called “Azimut,” after which “KMK” and “Pervy Zavod” reached a settlement agreement with creditors in April this year.

The owner and director of “Azimut,” to whom the Khmarin-Medvedchuk-Gogelia company owes about 60 million rubles, turned out to be a factory worker from one of Kaluga’s industrial plants — 45-year-old Ukrainian-born Viktor Afanasyev, a regular client and debtor of microloan companies, earning just 35,000–50,000 rubles per month. On the same day “Azimut” was registered to Afanasyev, two other firms — “Saturn” and “Energiya” — were also registered in his name, though they have not yet appeared anywhere publicly.

“Pervy Zavod” has another subsidiary — LLC “Arctic Bunker.” Through it, the refinery sells its products, including shipments by rail tank cars to LLC “Transbunker-Novorossiysk.”