"Some are fighting, others trade - one clan"

Before the full -scale invasion of Russian troops in Ukraine, the Kherson region was included in the three leaders in terms of the volume of collected crops of grain crops. The Russian occupation forced many Ukrainian farmers to leave their homes and throw farms. The remaining to survive were forced to sell products at a low cost.

The opportunity to earn on looting of farms left by Ukrainians and on the resale of cheap grain attracted many Russians to the Kherson region. “Important stories” found among them people from the encirclement of Ramzan Kadyrov. We tell how Chechen security forces and their relatives became one of the beneficiaries of war in Ukraine.

The reserved zone

Askania-Nova is a steppe reserve in the south of the Kherson region. More than three thousand rare animals live there: bison, saigas, horses of Przhevalsky, Turkmen kulans. Russian troops occupied this territory in 2022, at the beginning of a full -scale invasion of Ukraine.

In March 2023, the Kremlin also showed interest in the territory: the first deputy head of the presidential administration, Sergei Kiriyenko, who is considered a curator of the occupied Ukrainian territories, came to the reserve on an excursion and brought a new director with him. After the change of leadership and the visit of Kiriyenko, new Russian legal entities began to be registered in the area.

In February 2024, the company "Agro 24" appeared on the street in the village of Askania-Nova on a street neighboring reserve in the village of Askania. Her only owner is 43-year-old Elbek Zayev from Chechnya. In the registration documents, Zaiev indicated that his company would be engaged in the cultivation of grain crops, wholesale grain and other types of agricultural activities.

ZAIEV-from the village of Tsotsi-Yurt, which is a forty minutes drive from Grozny. The name of the village became famous in 2017 after the investigation of Radio Liberty about the secret prison located there, where gays were tortured and killed.

Before registering a company in the Kherson region, Zaiev was not engaged in business, nothing was known about his biography. However, the “important stories” found a photograph of seven years ago on his Instagram, which shows from what surrounding Zayev.

In 2017, he published a photo of three people in uniform. Two of them are the Delimkhanov brothers, Alibek and the ball. Both are the generals of the Russian Guard and relatives of the right hand of Ramzan Kadyrov, Adam Delimkhanov. The third person in the photo (in the center) is less famous.

In the comments, one of the subscribers called him “Norweg Leo”. “Important stories” found out that Norweg is the call sign Ali Zaev, brother Elbek.

According to the GetContact service, Zaev’s number was recorded by other people as “Ali Norweg regiment of the deputy khas”, “Ali Norweg from Apty” and “Ali Deputy Commander of the Regiment Urus Martan”.

The Urus-Martan is deployed by the 94th operational regiment of the Russian Guard, which participated in the invasion of Ukraine: after the Russian army retreat from part of the Kherson region, the Ukrainian military discovered many abandoned bodies of Russian soldiers from the 94th regiment.

Ali Zaiev appeared several times in the video about the 94th regiment, which Ramzan Kadyrov published in his telegram channel. In August 2023, Zayev, probably being at the front, explained to the camera how his unit was being detained by the enemy, and a little later, in November, Zaev and the regiment commander Khasmagomed Magadomov led the construction of military personnel before they were sent to Ukraine.

Judging by the photos and videos that found “important stories”, Ali Zayev is surrounded by the Chechen security officials close to Kadyrov. For example, in one photo he is captured with Alibek Delimkhanov and Ruslan Geremeyev, the former serviceman of the North regiment, whom the Boris Nemtsov family calls the organizer of the murder of an opposition policy. In the same photo - Zaur Dadaev - a killer who shot at Nemtsov. In the center, putting his hands on the shoulders of Zaeva, the head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov stands.

Since the publication of that photograph, the relationship between Zaiev and Kadyrov, apparently, has been strengthened. In December 2023, a publication appeared on the website of United Russia on how the party restored the house to a resident of the occupied Genichesk by the name of Kadyrov. In this note, Ali Zayev is mentioned as a representative of the Akhmat Kadyrov regional fund. “This is not the first family where we helped. We help everywhere, including in the Kherson region, ”Zaeva quoted the site of United Russia.

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How many brother Zaeva, Elbek, earned a grain from the Kherson region, is difficult to say. Firstly, because the Agro 24 company registered at the beginning of this year has not yet published financial statements. Secondly, grain calculations in the occupied territories are usually carried out in cash. However, judging by how many Russians were opened by agricultural companies in Kherson and other captured areas, this “business” attracts many.

Agriculture in occupation

“Important stories” calculated that since February 2022, 892 new agricultural companies appeared in the captured territories of Ukraine. More than half of them were registered by entrepreneurs from the Russian regions, the rest were local residents.

According to the Ukrainian authorities, in 2023, the Russians took almost five million tons of grain from the occupied territories. As the Russian BBC service wrote , grain from these regions of Ukraine is sent to Crimea by trains and trucks. In a conversation with journalists, carriers assured that the grain that they are taking to Russia, not stolen, but bought from Ukrainian farmers. But this trade cannot be called market.

The Ukrainian authorities reported that farmers remaining in the seized territories were required to sell the crop of the occupation authorities at a fixed price below the market. It was , for example, about 150 dollars per ton of sunflower, which is four times lower than pre -war prices. Farmers who refused to cooperate with the authorities simply took the grain, said the head of the Association of Farmers of the Zaporizhzhya Region Valery Matvienko.

At the same time, the occupation authorities themselves do not deny that they capture enterprises “abandoned” in Ukraine, the products of which are then resold in Russia or even abroad. “Some abandoned object is detected, yes. As a rule, the people who abandoned this object - they threw it along with the employees who used to work there. Accordingly, we go, take this enterprise under protection. We organize, well ... we carry out fully comprehensive inventory, ”Nikita Busel, director of the“ state grain operator ”, created in the Melitopol of the Zaporizhzhya region after occupation, reported .

Journalists of the Financial Times, referring to Ukrainian entrepreneurs who left the occupied region, wrote that the “state grain operator” would resell the grain or crop collected from their lands. Buyers are located not only in Russia, but also abroad - in Turkey, Syria and Iran.

Not only grain

The removal of grain from the occupied regions of Ukraine is not the only way to earn money in the war that attracted the Chechen security forces and the environment of Kadyrov.

Ilyich’s metallurgical plant-once one of the largest enterprises in Ukraine-was significantly destroyed during the assault on Mariupol. “In fact, in the purified and demated territory they began to cut the plant into scrap metal. This is the restoration of Russians. There was a metal roll - it became scrap metal, ”the assistant mayor of Mariupol Petr Andryushchenko described the fate of the plant.

As the Russian BBC Service wrote , in August 2022, the company MMK named after Ilyich ". Since April of this year, the address of its registration: Mariupol, st. Levchenko, d. 1. There is also a destroyed by the Russian troops and the Ilyich plant disassembled onto the scrap metal.

In 2023, for a short time, the co -owner of “MMK named after Ilyich ”was an entrepreneur from Chechnya Valid Korchagin, associated with the family of the ally of Kadyrov, Senator Suleiman Geremeyev. In the same 2023, his share passed to Alash Dadashov, the head of the Moscow branch of the Akhmat club.

Revenue "MMK named after Ilyich ”last year amounted to 28 million rubles, assets - almost 170 million, while most of them are reserves: this is how raw materials, materials and finished products for resale are reflected in the financial statements.

“Some are fighting, others are trading - one clan,” the employee of one of the Rostov companies describes his impressions of unsuccessful partnership with Chechen entrepreneurs. His company tried to buy barley from an agricultural film recently created in the Kherson region, which belongs to a native of Chechnya. But the Kherson company violated the agreements, and the Rostov businessmen had to go to court to recover the debt under one of the delivery contracts in the amount of 900 thousand rubles: “They were simply lost [after they received an advance], the tubes did not take, the accountant said that everyone would return it, since they should. And for six months they promise. ”

Editors: Alesya Marokhovskaya, Roman Anin