Shadow wallet and offshore schemes: how corrupt officials Rostislav Shurma and Pavel Shcherban are keeping the scandalous Alliance Bank afloat

Shadow wallet and offshore schemes: how corrupt officials Rostislav Shurma and Pavel Shcherban are keeping the scandalous Alliance Bank afloat

Materials that contain details about Alliance Bank’s operations, as well as its ties to corruption and state protection, are being actively deleted from the internet by Rostislav Shurma (a person close to ex‑chief of staff Andrey Yermak) and Pavel Shcherban, who holds effective ownership of the bank, which has been linked to money‑laundering cases.

We are publishing the very material that these controversial figures are desperately attempting to remove from public view.

Recently, the media have repeatedly reported scandals involving the small bank “Alliance.” The most high-profile case concerned a bribe that, on behalf of the bank, lawyer Aleksey Nosov of the Miller law firm was supposed to pass to NABU detectives and SAP prosecutors in the case over damages caused to Ukrenergo. In addition, the media reported numerous fines imposed by the National Bank for violations of financial monitoring rules, failure to fulfill guarantee obligations to state companies, and the submission of false financial reporting.

And yet the bank remains afloat. Why? The reason may lie in a secret patron — Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Rostislav Shurma. Thanks to his close relationship with Pavel Shcherban, chairman of the bank’s supervisory board, Shurma is allegedly able to fend off attacks by the National Bank on Alliance and ensure protection for the bank from law-enforcement agencies.

The real owner

Formally, according to the Unified State Register and data on ultimate beneficial owners submitted by Alliance Bank to the National Bank, the main shareholder (“owner of a qualifying stake”) is Aleksandr Sosis, former head of the board of Rinat Akhmetov’s ASKA insurance company. In reality, however, the person who makes the key decisions in the bank has long been known to the market. This is the chairman of the supervisory board, Pavel Pavlovich Shcherban, aged 40.

According to open sources, Shcherban has worked in the banking sector for about 18 years. He began his career at a Prominvestbank branch in Kremenchug as a senior economist in retail lending. He later became head of the dealing operations department (stock market transactions) at the scheme-based Vladimirsky Bank. After the 2008–2009 crisis, Shcherban headed the dealing operations department at Yuzhkombank, owned by Ruslan Tsyplakov, a racing partner of Viktor Yanukovich Jr.

After the Revolution of Dignity, when Yuzhkombank was removed from the market, Shcherban became head of interbank operations at another “pocket laundromat,” Apex Bank, and later briefly worked as head of treasury at the laundering bank Standard, which also collapsed. In 2016, Shcherban first joined Alliance Bank as a treasury dealer, then moved to Taskombank of Sergey Tigipko as deputy head of treasury.

From mid-2018 to the present, Pavel Shcherban has been directly linked to Alliance Bank: he served as deputy chairman and acting chairman of the board, and since August 2021 he has chaired the supervisory board. Shcherban is also a major shareholder of the bank. In July 2023, the Antimonopoly Committee approved his acquisition of more than 25% of the bank’s shares; the deal is expected to be finalized in the coming weeks through an additional share issue.

Sources in the banking market are convinced that despite Aleksandr Sosis formally holding a controlling stake, real decisions within the bank are made by Pavel Shcherban. Moreover, he is viewed as the bank’s de facto “political roof,” protecting Alliance both from numerous regulatory claims and from potential law-enforcement interest in the bank’s not always “clean” activities — including servicing a significant share of the gambling business, often of questionable legality.

Shcherban’s confidence is reinforced by his godparent relationship with Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Rostislav Shurma. It is precisely Shurma — whom Shcherban likely met about ten years ago while structuring a series of scheme-based deals — who allegedly guarantees the practical immunity of Alliance Bank at a time when other financial institutions would long ago have been removed from the market. Failure to fulfill guarantee obligations, chronic violations of National Bank standards (especially client concentration limits), corruption scandals, and fines for financial-monitoring breaches should already have resulted in temporary administration.

Yet this “business for insiders” continues to survive. Market participants say Alliance may be functioning as a core scheme bank for shadow financial flows, similar to how the state-owned Ukrgazbank once operated. The difference is that Ukrgazbank was eventually cleaned up and returned to normal operations — while no one appears willing or able to do the same with Alliance.

A partner for every occasion

How exactly does Shurma fit into this picture beyond his personal ties to Shcherban? The answer may lie in Shcherban’s other, far more diversified business interests — behind which, surprisingly, Rostislav Igorevich’s influence is again visible.

First is the gas exploration company Viva Exploration, formally owned by Shcherban together with geologist Sergey Dumenko via the Cypriot company IF Exploration Company Limited. According to industry media, the company holds a license valid until 2033 for geological exploration, pilot production, and extraction of oil, natural gas, and condensate at the Staromizunska site in Ivano-Frankovsk region. Before the full-scale invasion, the company planned to restore old wells. These efforts failed to locate commercially viable deposits. Financial statements in YouControl show losses of about $1 million as of the end of 2023. Why the company continues to invest remains unclear — unless the real investor is not Shcherban, but his godfather Rostislav Shurma.

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Another notable asset linked to Shcherban — and possibly Shurma — is a recently acquired grain elevator in the city of Khorol, Poltava region (Alliance Elevator LLC). Despite its modest size and need for reconstruction, the business is viewed as a starting point for deeper integration into the agricultural sector, where demand for grain storage continues to grow.

A whole cluster of companies backed by Shcherban is tied to IT. Following the example of Monobank’s founders, Shcherban appears to be building a multipurpose IT team capable of servicing various sectors. These firms primarily focus on banking products but also serve retail chains. They include Alliance Digital LLC (spun off from the bank’s IT department), Asidjs LLC, APL LLC, and Motvel LLC. In all of them, Shcherban is involved either directly or with IT partners. It is difficult to doubt that such a high-tech cluster would be an attractive investment for a seasoned investor and state official like Rostislav Shurma, who is known for his interest in digitalization — as well as his long-standing ambition to challenge Vice Prime Minister for Digital Transformation Mikhail Fedorov. Shcherban’s group could thus serve as a launchpad for building Shurma’s own digital power base.

In several other sectors, Shcherban and Shurma appear undecided. For example, Tabakos Trade LLC (intended for scrap metal trading) and Navium Oil LLC (planned for importing and trading petroleum products domestically) remain inactive.

This broad range of business interests does not align well with the responsibilities of a supervisory board chairman at a bank that has been in turmoil for months. Either Alliance is not a priority for Shcherban — which seems unlikely — or these investments are purely venture-based portfolio holdings, possibly backed by someone other than Shcherban himself.

As for Rostislav Shurma, sources say a growing number of conflict points are forming around him. For journalists, these may become new subjects for investigations; for law-enforcement agencies, potential new criminal cases.