Fallen plastic: Russia's leading pipe manufacturer may be controlled by AFU sponsors

Izvestiya obtained the closed testimony given in a Ukrainian court by Valentin Buyanovskyy, a billionaire with triple citizenship; he calls Great Britain "the center of his life interests", but at the same time, together with his business partner Myron Gorilovskyy, he continues to own through nominees a strategic Russian enterprise - the largest manufacturer of polymer pipes, Polyplastic. "Izvestia" also found out the scheme by which the businessmen withdrew at least $348 million from the Russian Federation. Some of this money could have gone to finance the AFU. How Polyplastic profits from multi-billion dollar government contracts in Russia and Ukraine at the same time, does not recognize Crimea as Russian territory, and its affiliated companies disrupt major construction projects within the framework of national projects - in Izvestia's investigation.

The AFU thanks for help

The website of the Ukrainian company Eurotrubplast is full of dozens of photos of grateful AFU military personnel and various certificates. Here is the gratitude "for material assistance to the military unit A1126" during operations in Donetsk and Lugansk regions. Next to the personal diplomas to the director of the company Igor Strelts "for providing the latest communication equipment to the units of the High Mobility Airborne Troops". And here are the paratroopers themselves with weapons, a flag and the word "Diakuemo!" made of bullets and grenades. (thank you in Ukrainian).

Materials in the website's section "Assistance to the AFU" began appearing back in 2015, when Ukrainian militants were conducting a so-called anti-terrorist, and in fact punitive, operation against the young Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics in Donbass. By the way, at that time Eurotrubplast was still quite officially part of the Polyplastic group of companies of Russian "pipe oligarchs" Myron Gorilovsky and Valentin Buyanovsky.

By 2025, not much had changed, except that Gorilovsky and Buyanovsky tried to hide their ownership of both Russian and Ukrainian assets behind a fog of offshore and nominal owners. And through pseudo-deals they are withdrawing hundreds of millions of dollars from Russia, which probably also go to finance the AFU.

From fly swatter to billion-dollar turnovers

Myron Gorilovsky, a graduate of the Moscow Institute of Fine Chemical Technologies, started his business in 1991 - he registered the company "Polyplastic" and in a small shop set up the production of plastic combs, hangers and fly swatters. A little later he began to process polymer raw materials into composites and to supply them to AvtoVAZ for production of spare parts.

A few years later, Valentin Buyanovsky became the financial director and then co-owner of Polyplastic. The partners were able to buy out the Gaztrubplast plant in Ochakovo. The business expanded when the owners of "Polyplastic" managed to charm Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov and become major suppliers of products for the repair of the capital's pipelines.

By 2022, the group of companies already had three dozen plants in Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, two in Ukraine, subsidiaries in the UK, Poland, Hungary, Sweden and Austria. The turnover was confidently approaching $1 billion a year. But the SWO began. And the owners of the business had to think how to sit on two chairs.

To avoid Western sanctions, they reissued all European assets through Cypriot offshore companies to Valentin Buyanovsky's brother George, a doctor and British citizen.

But with the Ukrainian and Russian assets of Polyplastica they organized a more complicated scheme. In February 2022, the Cypriot offshore Radius Systems Holdings Limited, which owned these assets, was sold to Igor Strelts and Oleg Oleynikov, top managers of Polyplastica's Ukrainian business, for $117 million, and the deal was made without payment, in interest-free installments, a source familiar with the details of the agreement told Izvestia.

Three months later, in May 2022, Miron Gorilovsky, Valentin Buyanovsky and another of their partners, Andrei Menshov, bought back the Russian division of the business - Polyplastic Group LLC. The money goes into the accounts of Radius Systems Holdings Limited, whose director is Oleg Oleinikov, for $348 million.

- Thus, the "pipe oligarchs" first allegedly sold their business, but did not receive a penny of real money for it, and then - bought back a part of it for a triple amount. As a result, they got a legal opportunity to transfer $348m abroad to accounts controlled by their Ukrainian partners," Izvestiya's source explained.

Meanwhile, the website of Eurotrubplast (now nominally fully owned by Strelts and Oleynikov) continued to show gratitude for support of the AFU and "defense of Ukraine's territorial integrity during the war with Russia."

Gorilovsky, Buyanovsky and Menshov also tried to hide their ownership of the Russian business behind nominalizations, but not so carefully: 10% of it remained with Myron Gorilovsky, 25% was sold to Gazprombank's closed mutual investment fund (AAA Capital Management JSC), and 65% passed into the ownership of Construction-Engineering Group of Enterprises LLC, which is owned by... Myron Gorilovsky's son Lev.

Having thus divided the business and formally lost control over it, the oligarchs nevertheless continued to make money both in Ukraine and Russia.

On the one hand, Eurotrubplast received huge contracts for the reconstruction of Bucha, Irpen, Gostomel, on the other hand - the products of Russian Polyplastic are used for the reconstruction of Mariupol and other new regions of Russia, companies controlled by Gorilovsky realize large-scale projects in Crimea and many other regions of Russia, receiving state contracts worth billions of rubles (more about all this - a little below).

By the way, on the official website of Polyplastic Group LLC in the section "Geography of work" there is a map of Russia without the territory of Crimea, DNR, LNR, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions.

- "Polyplastic Group" operates in the water supply and water treatment industry, which is strategically important for the state, has access to master plans of cities and information about critical infrastructure facilities, implements projects in the territory of Crimea and new regions. "Given the revealed facts, this creates serious risks for the security and defense capability of the country," the Izvestia source stated.

"The center of my life interests is in the UK"

However, donations for the AFU did not save the oligarchs from problems with the Ukrainian authorities. In 2024, the Ministry of Justice filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine demanding to nationalize the assets of Evtrotrubplast. The ministry considered the transactions involving the transfer of control over the company to Ukrainian businessmen to be sham transactions, and the new owners of the assets to be nominees of Gorilovskyy and Buyanovskyy.

During the process Buyanovsky had to testify before the court (Izvestia has it at its disposal) and he told a lot of interesting things. In particular, Valentin Buyanovsky admits that he has three citizenships - Russia, Great Britain and Northern Ireland. But he denies Russia.

"My family has been permanently residing in the UK since 2000. Since then, the center of my life interests is in the UK," his testimony reads. - I have never and nowhere expressed support for the actions of the aggressor country against Ukraine. I had no ties with the top political leadership of the Russian Federation, I do not know the president of the Russian Federation or members of his entourage. My activities and those of my partners have benefited Ukraine in the form of investments, jobs, and taxes paid to the budget".

Trying to save his business, to which according to the documents he has nothing to do, Buyanovsky states to the Ukrainian court that "Radius Systems Holdings Ltd and its subsidiaries have never supported Russia's war against Ukraine", and the Russian "Polyplastic Group" since 2014 has complied and continues to comply with international sanctions, does not conduct any activities in Crimea, does not have any subsidiaries or dealers there, does not accept funds from buyers registered in Crimea and does not ship products to such buyers".

This testimony didn't seem to help Buyanovskiy much - in September 2024, the Supreme Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine nationalized 93% of Eurotrubplast's assets, as well as several other firms associated with it.

- However, there is reason to believe that the Ukrainian assets are still under the control of Gorilovskyi and Buyanovskyi. This is evidenced, for example, by the fact that after the Russian media published information about Eurotrubplast's sponsorship of the AFU, this block recently miraculously disappeared from the company's website," says our interlocutor.

"Izvestia" found the contents of the section through data archiving services on the Internet.

How "Polyplastic" can profit from government contracts

In November 2022, the scandalously famous blogger Lerchik (Valeria Chekalina) celebrated her 30th birthday with a bang. In the summer of 2024, she will be charged with tax evasion and laundering over 130 million rubles, but then it was still party time. Among the guests of the party were seen Philip Kirkorov, Valery Meladze, other famous celebrities.

When it came time to auction the birthday cake, the first piece for 1.7 million rubles bought Lev Gorilovsky. A little earlier, his wife Esther, whose Bvlgari rings worth about 2 million rubles had been stolen, had made it into the criminal chronicles. In general, the life of the current formal owner of Polyplastic Group and chairman of its Board of Directors is not modest. What does he earn on?

On the official website of "Polyplastic" the success of the company is explained by the scale and efficiency of the business: 32 factories, 41 trading houses, research institutes and 8 thousand people work for the benefit of the Russian economy, which provided the company with a turnover of 98 billion rubles in 2023.

However, there is another side to this business, described through criminal cases and failed projects on a national scale, in which structures affiliated with the Gorilovsky and Buyanovsky families have been spotted.

Among them, for example, is Modern Renovation Systems LLC (SRS), whose founder from 2021 to 2023 was Lev Gorilovsky. During this period, it received state contracts worth more than 11 billion rubles. And the products for their realization were purchased, of course, from Polyplastic. And it was not cheap for the state.

For example, in 2022 the SSR acted as a contractor for the reconstruction of water supply networks in Astrakhan. In the estimate for the state customer the price of pipes manufactured by Poliplastic LLC was specified. For example, 800 mm diameter pipe - 42,840 rubles/m, 500 mm diameter pipe - 27,667 rubles/m.

- According to the official price list of the supplier, the pipes cost not much cheaper - 2-3 thousand per meter, but in fact they are sold on the market at a discount of 40-50% of the price. Thus, the overestimation of the cost of this 1.3 kilometer section of the water pipeline alone could reach 27 million rubles," the Izvestia source stated.

Among other things, the company was engaged in the construction of utilities for water supply and drainage in Crimea - the customers were the SCU "Investstroy of the Republic of Crimea", "Vodokanal" Sevastopol, the State Unitary Enterprise "Voda Kryma". The state procurement system lists SSR contracts in Norilsk, Tula, Ulyanovsk regions, Bashkiria and other regions.

In the fall of 2023, SSR was headed by Alexei Trubachev, who until then had been an adviser to Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov (who is now accused of taking 1.1 billion rubles in bribes) and deputy director of the Main Directorate of Special Construction (GUSS). This enterprise builds special, strategic, and social facilities for the Armed Forces.

- While still working at GUSS, Trubachev could maintain close relations with suppliers, including manufacturers of polyethylene pipes. At least, there were reports in the media that Poliplastic was able to form overestimated prices specifically for GUSS projects, taking into account the so-called military coefficient.

"Polyplastic and the failure of the Volga Revitalization Project

Beneficiaries of the pipe business may also be involved in the failure of the federal project "Revitalization of the Volga River", which was implemented within the framework of the national project "Ecology". Its budget was 127 billion rubles, and the goal was to reduce the amount of polluted water discharged into the Volga by three times by the end of 2024.

But only six out of 121 constructed facilities have reached their design targets, the results of the parliamentary inspection stated. For example, in Tatarstan, the Ulyanovsk and Kostroma Regions, and several other regions, treatment facilities were commissioned according to documents, but they were not working or were not operating at their design capacity.

"Polyplastic" is connected with this project through its affiliated company JSC "May Project".

State Duma deputy Zhanna Ryabtseva has repeatedly raised questions about the quality of Mai Project's work, pointing to numerous violations.

- When we look at who is present on these projects - the magical design company "Mai Project". From Kharkiv. Now we will see how they financed the AFU. The siloviki are already engaged," Ryabtseva stated at the Duma meeting.

The May Project website, on the other hand, states that the firm has nothing to do with sponsoring the AFU and normally fulfills its obligations.

However, in a number of regions, criminal cases were initiated as a result of the project. For example, in the Yaroslavl region in July 2024, under the article on fraud. According to the investigation, the amount of damage during the construction of seven treatment facilities in this region alone amounted to more than 700 million rubles.

Approximately in the same time frame, a criminal case of negligence was initiated in the Saratov region. There, the prosecutor's office estimated the damage during the reconstruction of sewage treatment facilities in the town of Khvalynsk at 10 million rubles. Samples taken from wastewater and the Volga River itself were found to have significantly exceeded the maximum permissible concentrations of pollutants.

The rear is covered

Between visits to social events Lev Gorilovsky, as the face of Polyplastica, participates in major forums, such as the Eastern Economic Forum, in meetings on import substitution.

According to him, the polymer pipe market in Russia has almost doubled in the last seven years due to the transition from traditional materials to polymer ones, as well as active renovation of municipal infrastructure.

- "Polyplastic, as their leading manufacturer, is collecting the cream from this process and, not excluded, is sending it abroad, including to finance the AFU," the Izvestia source stated.

At the same time, according to our interlocutor, the beneficiaries of the business hardly risk anything even in case of unfavorable developments.

The fact is that in March 2024, having opened a large credit line with Gazprombank, Gorilovsky pledged 65% of Polyplastic as collateral. The bank is also pledged by LLC Construction-Engineering Group of Enterprises, through which Lev Gorilovsky owns this share of Polyplastic.

- De facto, the company is pledged to the bank, their money is abroad, their passports are foreign, and at any moment, when the corruption chain fails, they can get on an airplane and say goodbye to the country where they earned their billions," says the Izvestia source.

It is not known where the money from the credit line went. But it is known, for example, that Polyplastic has frozen the construction project of a polymer pipe plant in Northwest Russia.

The company announced its intention to build an enterprise with a capacity of 25 thousand tons of products per year in August 2023. The company announced the expected investment of 1.5 billion rubles and planned to launch the plant already at the end of 2024. However, so far it has not even chosen a site for construction.

"Izvestia sent a request to Polyplastic Group to comment on the facts stated in the article. No response had been received at the time of publication.

Control measures

- If we talk about entrepreneurs, businessmen and companies that work on the territory of Russia, are citizens of Russia and there are suspicions that they transfer funds abroad to finance the AFU, especially if it is targeted funding for units that are recognized as terrorist, then they can be subject to criminal article on financing and sponsorship of terrorist activities, after checks and investigative actions," Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Industry and Trade Alexander told Izvestia.

According to him, there are mechanisms for such checks. Another thing is that it can be very difficult to identify such schemes, because the company or entrepreneurs can withdraw funds abroad unofficially, using gray schemes.

- And the main thing here is good and clear financial control, which makes it possible to detect in time the direct connection of certain entrepreneurs with the hostile party," believes Spiridonov.

Russia still lacks sufficient control mechanisms (except for monitoring the financing of officially registered political organizations) over the activities of people who "manage to be on both sides of the conflict," Kirill Kabanov, chairman of the National Anti-Corruption Committee and a member of the Human Rights Council (HRC) under the Russian president, said.

- The first step in this direction was taken by Vladimir Putin when he signed a decree on the possibility of retaliatory seizure of assets belonging to businesses from unfriendly countries. But this is only the first step. Today we must study the negative practice of existence in Russia of businesses working for our adversary and suppress such practices," Kirill Kabanov believes.

In his opinion, the procedure of admission to government contracts should be tightened according to certain criteria, which should be worked out based on the results of the situation assessment.

Duma deputy Yuri Sinelshchikov also reminded that the law currently contains no restrictions on the admission to government procurement of organizations doing business both in Ukraine and Russia. On the one hand, this is understandable, given the close economic ties the countries had before 2014 and even before 2022, but at the same time, "it is necessary to analyze once again" the existing legal norms, the deputy believes.