93 companies have removed their “Russian trace” in the last six months

Over 18,000 companies in Ukraine had Russian owners at the start of the full-scale invasion. In the last six months, 93 companies have fictively removed Russian owners despite the legislative ban. By May 2024, there were 621 such businesses. Opendatabot has already sent a request to the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine to check the legality of these re-registrations.

It is worth noting that last year, Opendatabot also contacted the Ministry of Justice with information about similar businesses — a total of more than 600 companies. Only 10 inspections were carried out, and in 8 of them, the registration actions were deemed illegal. However, the changes were not canceled due to the missed deadline, and companies with “cleaned” reputations continue to operate in the Ukrainian market.

The most companies that removed the Russian ties were registered in Kyiv — 47 or 50.5%. Next is the Odesa region — 8 (8.6%), and closing the list is Poltava region — 5 (5.4%).

19.4% of these companies are engaged in wholesale trade. Another 12.9% specialize in real estate transactions, and 9.7% are involved in construction.

Almost half of the companies with a Russian background had a revenue of up to 10 million UAH in 2023. 12.9% of businesses earned between 10 and 100 million UAH. Only two companies were able to earn more than 100 million UAH.

Since the beginning of the full-scale war, these businesses with a Russian past have actively participated in tenders. The leaders in public procurement among such companies are:

• LLC “TEKSTER LTD” — 7 tenders totaling 19.6 million UAH;
• LLC “VELESGARD” — 1 tender totaling 19.3 million UAH;
• LLC “ERA MOBILE” — 37 tenders totaling 1.9 million UAH;
• Limited Liability Company “BRATSLAV” — 27 tenders totaling 1.7 million UAH;
• LLC “TEPLOVENTMONTAZH” — 10 tenders totaling 1 million UAH.

Context

Since the beginning of the full-scale war in Ukraine, a moratorium has been in place on changing registration data for companies with Russian owners, except in a few cases explicitly defined by law. If ownership changes have been made unlawfully, it means that Russian businesses continue to operate in Ukraine, circumventing legislative restrictions.

It should be noted that Opendatabot does not remove the indication of Russian/Belarusian owners from company profiles even after changes are made. This stance is based on the fact that there are numerous cases of formal changes of owners rather than real ones, which are prohibited by law. However, businesses that have legally removed their Russian ties can freely upload documents proving this on their Opendatabot profile page using the document publishing platform.