Maksym Viktorovych Yefimov
Official biography
Born on November 1, 1974 in Petropavlovsk, Kazakhstan.
Education.
Donetsk State University, majoring in finance and credit; Donetsk National Technical University, majoring in ferrous metallurgy; graduated from the University of Bern.
Family.
Married to Anna Efimova, has three children.
His father is Viktor Yefimov.
Career.
From 1996 to 1998, Maksym Yefimov worked as CEO of Kramatorsk Metallurgical Machine-Building Company and then Kramatorsk Multidisciplinary Marketing Company LLC. But then he unexpectedly quit teaching and became the director of a flying club, the Kramatorsk School of Aeronautics.
A year later, he left this profession to take up the position of Deputy Director for Commercial Affairs at the Energomashspetsstal plant in Kramatorsk, owned by his father, Viktor Yefimov. In 2006, Maksym took over the company, first as director and a year later as general director.
At the same time, Yefimov Jr. entered politics. He became a deputy of the Kramatorsk City Council from the Party of Regions. On August 2, 2014, Maksym Viktorovych left the political party and joined the Party for the Development of Ukraine. In the fall of the same year, he ran for parliamentary elections as a self-nominated candidate in the single-member constituency No. 48 in Donetsk Oblast. Maksym Yefimov was elected by 34.12% of voters, which ensured his victory. In the Verkhovna Rada of the VIII convocation, he joined the Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction.
On July 21, 2019, Maksym Yefimov was elected to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of the 9th convocation in the majority constituency No. 48.
Compromising material
In 1993, local residents Biletskyi and Shportiuk created the organized criminal group “17th Precinct” in the city.
According to media reports, in the 90s, Maksym Yefimov contacted the 17th Precinct organized crime group and actively conducted business with them. There is also evidence of their close relationship. In the scandalous photo, the future MP and member of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction, then still young and with a curly head, appears in the company of four “brothers,” three of whom were immediately recognized by residents of Kramatorsk.
In addition to these people, the businessman cooperated with the Stare Misto organized crime group. Moreover, according to SKELET-info, Maksym Yefimov’s father not only paid tribute to the criminals, but also ran a shadow business with them. Thus, through his companies, the bandits «laundered» the money obtained by dishonest means, and in return «protected» their companion. However, Yefimov Sr. himself had considerable connections in the prosecutor’s office, government authorities, and the criminal world.
Тn his biography, Maksym Yefimov writes that he graduated from the University of Bern, but this is not true: the Zollikofen College is only a kind of «associated branch» of the university, and they teach agronomy. How so? It turns out that it was all about the company Fistag-Victoria, which was a Ukrainian-Swiss joint venture. This company was mainly engaged in the export of metal, often stolen from companies (formally written off), which passed customs under shady schemes, and at the same time took the currency received abroad. With this money, Efimov Sr. allocated some funding to the College of Zollikofen, which allowed him to enroll his son and the children of his colleagues. The fact that neither Zollikofen College nor even the University of Bern teaches engineers or economists was of much concern to anyone — in Ukraine, the phrase «studied in Switzerland» had a magical effect, skeleton-info adds.
How did Russian sanctions bypass Yefimov?
Journalist Reshetylova noticed that the Russians had bypassed Maxim Yefimov when compiling the sanctions list. She shared her suspicions on Facebook.
“The Russians have imposed sanctions against Ukrainian top officials and politicians, as well as some businesses. A complete set. Almost the entire composition of the BPP and the PF. Both Avakov and Oleksiy Poroshenko. That’s almost everyone. Do you know who is not on the list? BPP MP Maksym Yefimov.
The very same Yefimov who is directly involved in the Starokramatorsk Machine-Building Plant and Energomashspetsstal, which are owned by Rosatom through offshore companies.
Neither Yefimov nor his companies. Doesn’t sound like a paleo-type thing, does it? Let me remind you that this group of companies occasionally receives defense orders from Ukroboronprom. For example, to manufacture barrels for Molot mortars.
Can the manufacturer of Molot mortars be included in the Russian sanctions list? No, the Kremlin should rather give him a hero’s star.”
By 2020, Maksym Yefimov was still included in Russia’s sanctions list.
MP YEFIMOV NAMED 14 COMPANIES IN HIS 2017 DECLARATION THAT HE HADN’T DECLARATED BEFORE, AND HIS WIFE SELLS ELITE CARS FOR CHEAP.
In 2017, the wife of MP Maksym Yefimov earned UAH 69,000 from the sale of two luxury Mercedes-Benz cars and became the owner of a Range Rover Sport at a price 5 times lower than the market price. Maksym Yefimov did not list 14 companies in his declarations for 2015 and 2016, which he listed only in his 2017 declaration, according to the Declarations project.
Compared to 2016, in the 2017 declaration, two cars, a 2005 Mercedes-Benz S320 and a 2008 Mercedes-Benz S550, disappeared from the property of Yefimov’s wife. However, on the sales websites, the used Mercedes-Benz S320 as of 2017 cost about $14,000, and the Mercedes-Benz S550 cost between $20,000 and $30,000. In other words, according to the journalists, the sale prices of the cars were understated to the current limit of cash payments, which is currently UAH 50,000.
In January 2017, Anna Yefimova became the owner of a 2014 Range Rover Sport. According to the declaration, its value at the time of purchase was about UAH 300,000. But on the secondary market, depending on the configuration, such cars now cost from 1.4 to 2 million hryvnias.
MP Maksym Yefimov himself added 14 companies from the Wind Parks of Ukraine Corporation to his 2017 declaration, which he forgot to mention in 2016. The Wind Parks of Ukraine Corporation specializes in the production of green electricity. As of 2017, its beneficiaries were Maksym Yefimov and billionaire Oleg Mkrtchan.
According to subparagraphs 5-1, part 1 of Article 46 of the Law of Ukraine “On Prevention of Corruption,” since 2015, the declaring entity in the electronic declaration must indicate legal entities whose ultimate beneficial owner (controller) is the declaring entity or members of his or her family. In addition, the declarant must provide reliable information about the property and its value at the time of acquisition. Failure to comply with these requirements of the law is grounds for bringing a person authorized to perform the functions of the state or local self-government to criminal (Article 366-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine) or administrative (Article 172-6 of the Code of Administrative Offenses) liability.
Maksym Yefimov makes a profit from doing business in the occupied Crimea, according to the National Bureau of Investigation of Ukraine.
He is a co-founder of Domkrymstroy LLC. In the past, he was the General Director of PJSC Energomashspetsstal, and as of 2016, the president of this company, Maxim Yefimov, left the “income from entrepreneurial and independent professional activities” column blank in his 2014 income tax return. He had no such income last year. Nevertheless, the MP received 14 million 18 thousand 366 hryvnias during the year. His salary amounted to more than UAH 2.6 million, and UAH 27.3 thousand was dividends and interest. The majority of Yefimov’s income came from other types of income not listed in the declaration.
Non-factional MP Maksym Yefimov and Donbasenergo CEO Eduard Bondarenko became co-owners of Novohrodivska Mine 1-3 LLC.
Non-factional MP Maksym Yefimov and Donbasenergo CEO Eduard Bondarenko have become co-owners of Novohrodivska Mine 1-3 LLC, which operates on coal seams that previously belonged to the state mine of the same name, Selydivuhillya. The relevant changes were made to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and Individuals on October 30, BusinessCensor reports citing Nashi Hroshi.
According to the registry, Yefimov and Bondarenko each own 25% of the company’s authorized capital, which amounts to UAH 1 million. Valeriy Atanov from occupied Makiivka, who in 2018 became the sole owner of Mine 1-3 Novohrodivska, retains 50%.
Atanov and Vyacheslav Karim are also the owners of Russia Mine LLC. This company was registered on the same day in 2012 as Mine 1-3 Novohrodivska and at the same address. The owner of the firms was Oleksandr Sichinava, the then chairman of the supervisory board of the All-Ukrainian Development Bank, owned by President Viktor Yanukovych’s son Oleksandr. Both firms duplicated the names of the respective mines of the state-owned enterprise Selydivuhillya.
On July 25, 2012, the State Service of Geology and Mineral Resources issued special permits to the firms for 20-year use of the seams that were developed by state mines.
In 2017, people close to businessman Vitaliy Kropachev became the owners of these companies, and he announced the purchase of these enterprises. But later, Atanov and Kariy became the owners.
After that, Donbasenergo CEO Eduard Bondarenko announced his involvement in the new owners of Mine Rossiya and Mine 1-3 Novohrodivska. And in 2018, the then MP from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc Maksym Yefimov announced that he had become the owner of shares in Donbasenergo, where 61% of the shares belong to Energoinvest Holding LLC and a quarter to the state. Previously, the company was controlled by Oleksandr Yanukovych and Ihor Humeniuk.
As reported, on July 4, the Economic Court of Donetsk region granted the claim of Novohrodivska Mine 1-3 LLC and recognized the agreement between this company and the separate subdivision of Novohrodivska Mine 1-3 of Selydivuhillya SE as concluded.
According to this agreement, state-owned miners have to mine coal for a private company on the terms of the company itself. At the same time, state-owned miners will rent equipment from private companies to mine state-owned coal.
In August, the mine filed an appeal against this decision, but immediately withdrew it. The court registry does not contain information about the appeal being filed again.
MPs, politicians and businessmen enrich themselves by maintaining the HIGH “green” tariff
The Parliament has maintained the inflated feed-in tariff for alternative energy facilities introduced in 2019. Among the beneficiaries are Rinat Akhmetov’s holding, ICU Group from Petro Poroshenko’s orbit, Avakov-Kotvitsky’s business, and ETG Group, which may be backed by Mykola Martynenko, according to journalists of the “Our Money with Denys Bihus” program in the story “Kings of Sun and Wind”.
The state has pledged to buy back the electricity generated by the facilities launched in 2019 at a high feed-in tariff until 2030. This tariff is 10 times higher than the fee for electricity generated by nuclear power plants. MP Maksym Yefimov from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc will also increase his «green» capacity in 2019. This is the MP whose mother recently had the Parkovyi complex in Kyiv with the «Yanukovych helipad» on the roof transferred to her.
MP from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc registered Yanukovych Heliport in his mother’s name
MP Maksym Yefimov has confirmed that his family has bought the company that owns the Parkovy convention and exhibition center in Kyiv.
“The beneficiary of this business is my mother, Lyubov Yefimova. The investor plans to entrust the right to operate the complex to an international company with a good reputation. Negotiations with potential partners are already underway. In the near future, we will present a concept for the development of the Parkovy Convention and Exhibition Center, which is unique for Ukraine,” said Yefimov.
Last year, journalists of the program “Our Money with Denys Bihus” found out that the new owner of Yanukovych’s helicopter landing site was a confidant of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc MP Maksym Yefimov.
According to the investigation, the owner of Parkovyi, Amadeus Co, is registered with the British company FINEROAD BUSINESS LLP, which changed its founder in December 2017. It was Serhii Moskovskyi, a native of Kramatorsk, who is close to MP Maksym Yefimov from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc.
On January 24, 2019, the Kyiv Economic Court ruled on the claim of Amadeus Co. and prohibited the National Agency for Finding and Management of Assets Derived from Corruption and Other Crimes from taking any actions to manage the property at 16-A Parkova Road.
MP Maksym Yefimov “HELPS” to win the tender for the restoration of Donbas to a firm from his entourage.
Restoring infrastructure in Donbas is a necessary task. At the same time, the journalists of the program “Schemes: Corruption in Detail” investigated whether it is possible to talk about fair distribution of budget funds when one of the main winners of tenders is a company associated with the MP’s entourage.
Due to the adoption of amendments to the Budget Code of Ukraine, according to which, temporarily, until the return of settlements under the control of the state authorities, the balances of local budgets of such settlements, which are accounted for as of January 1, 2016, on accounts with the Treasury of Ukraine, are credited to a special fund of the respective regional budgets of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. About 2500000000. UAH was received to restore the infrastructure of Donetsk region.
According to the list, most of the funds — about half a billion hryvnias each (i.e., proportional amounts) — went to Mariupol and Kramatorsk. Almost a third of this money went to Krammiskbud, which won almost all the tenders in Kramatorsk and neighboring cities.
According to the Dozorro monitoring portal, Krammiskbud is one of the three winners of the procurement announced by the Department of Capital Construction of the Donetsk Regional Administration, with a total amount of UAH 150,000,000. Krammiskbud’s projects include the renovation of a gymnasium in Kramatorsk, a cultural center and a local outpatient clinic, as well as the construction of an ice arena.
In May 2018, the Department of Ecology of the Donetsk Regional State Administration held tenders for garden landscaping for a total of over UAH 100,000,000. Two bidders took part in both tenders: “Aveskramstroy and Stroyukom. In both cases, the first company with the most favorable offer initially won, but in both cases, the company failed to submit the necessary documents in time. So Stroyukom became the winner. The journalists found the information about the place of registration of these companies suspicious: the offices are located in the same building and belong to Krammiskbud, which is also based here.
The company Aveskrambud is connected to Krammiskbud not only by its premises. 98% of the company is owned by its director, and another two are owned by Ukrmashinvest, an asset management company that owns Krammiskbud together with Krammiskbud. And the sole owner and director of Stroyukom is Maksym Tereshchenko, who previously headed Krammiskbud.
Who controls thisKrammiskbudconstruction company? Two residents of Kramatorsk own 49 percent of the company: Oleksandr Morozov and Stanislav Rusanenko. Another 2 percent is owned by Ukrmashinvest, whose ultimate beneficiaries include Lyudmyla Uliyashchenko, an assistant to MP Maksym Yefimov. At the same time, Maksym Yefimov himself listed himself as the ultimate owner of the company that owns Ukrmashynvest in his 2016 and 2017 declarations.
One of the current co-owners of Krammiskbud, Stanislav Rusanenko, used to be the chairman of the board of the company, where Anna Yefimov’s wife, MP, was the head of the audit committee at the time. Another co-owner of the company, Oleksandr Morozov, was a director of the company when it was owned by Yefimov himself.
Maksym Yefimov is an MP from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc and the main initiator of the draft law on the use of “transferred funds”.
Bribery of voters
During a meeting between residents of Chervonotorka village of Kramatorsk City Council and self-nominated candidate Maksym Yefimov, they were given free kvass and beer.
Petro Poroshenko Bloc MP Maksym Yefimov sponsored a gala concert
Petro Poroshenko Bloc MP Maksym Yefimov sponsored a gala concert “Bright Children of Ukraine” at the Novokramatorsk Machine-Building Plant in Kramatorsk, Donetsk Oblast.
Free medical examinations for schoolchildren
With the support of the charitable foundation of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc MP Maksym Yefimov’s Nash Kramatorsk, free medical examinations of schoolchildren were conducted by ophthalmologists (Donetsk Oblast).
A lottery with gifts
The charitable foundation of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc MP Maksym Yefimov’s Nash Kramatorsk held a lottery with the presentation of gifts (Donetsk Oblast).
Income/expenses
Millionaire MP Maksym Yefimov of the Dovira parliamentary group, with an official annual income of UAH 22.3 million, is siphoning off hundreds of millions. The editorial board of 368.media found this out after studying the MP’s declarations. The fact is that Yefimov regularly submits declarations on “significant changes in property status.” The changes are indeed significant, and Yefimov has made 91 of them since the beginning of the year, and the amount of money passing through his hands is ten times higher than his official income. The MP’s biggest expense item is debt repayment, and he has already spent over UAH 286.4 million on it. However, don’t be fooled: most of this amount is payments for the assignment of claims, and Yefimov will return his money with interest.
Another part of this amount is the repayment of repayable aid, which is very similar to the standard scheme of tax evasion through fictitious debt obligations. In this regard, it is not surprising that the second largest item of Yefimov’s expenses — UAH 134.7 million — is the repayment of this very same reimbursable aid. The money will be returned to Yefimov, and he will not have to pay taxes. Yefimov also likes to play with the currency market: according to the amendments to his declaration, he has already spent almost UAH 75.7 million on the purchase of different currencies this year, and another UAH 108 thousand on currency conversion fees. The fourth place goes to business: the MP has already spent UAH 53.7 million on expanding his business empire — he bought businesses and invested. By the way, we have already written that the MP conceals the real scope of his business in his declarations: in his annual declaration, he listed 68 companies in which he or his family members are the ultimate beneficiaries, but in fact, according to the YouControl analytical system, his group of companies includes 79 companies in Ukraine alone, and a number of companies are registered abroad — in Hungary, the United Kingdom, Cyprus, the United States, Germany, and the Virgin Islands.
In addition to himself, Yefimov often registers his companies for his wife Anna Yefimova, mother Lyubov Yefimova, daughter Isabella Yefimova, and assistant Lyudmila Ulyashchenko. In addition, the MP withdrew quite a lot of money from his mother, who, according to his own declarations, is a very wealthy old lady — in seven months, Liubov Yefimova received UAH 10.7 million from him. Then there’s tourism, and Maksym Yefimov turned out to be a very avid traveler: more than UAH 1.3 million for some tourist services, UAH 454.5 thousand for airline tickets, almost UAH 107 thousand for some passenger transportation, and, of course, renting a yacht — UAH 390.2 thousand, and paying for hotels in France — almost UAH 910 thousand. Yefimov seems to be very fond of France.
During his travels, the MP loves to shop — he has already spent 109.4 thousand hryvnias on clothes, and another 485.3 thousand hryvnias in the UAE on some “movable property”. And “children’s” expenses — the MP has already spent almost 895 thousand hryvnias on education abroad for his two children, and in addition, he gave his daughter Isabella 190 thousand hryvnias in financial aid. It is worth noting that in 2019, for example, he declared a total of UAH 22.3 million in income, which clearly does not correspond to his expenses. As for his earnings, we recall that while spending most of his time abroad, Yefimov likes to accrue “bonuses” for the work of the scientific and technical council of his own company, PJSC Energomashspetsstal, and has already accrued UAH 826.8 thousand. As we wrote earlier, the MP lives in Ukraine on a grand scale: in April 2014, he bought 12 plots of land in Donetsk with a total area of 11.5 thousand square meters, and in May 2014, he bought a 230-square-meter mansion, providing himself with land assets and real estate in the unrecognized “DPR”.
At home, in the village of Bilenke, Donetsk region, the MP has two mansions with a total area of 500 square meters and two plots of land with an area of 2.8 thousand square meters, and his calf farm with an area of 635.4 square meters is located there. In addition, in the village of Yasnohirka, Donetsk region, the MP has two shops with an area of 156 square meters and two plots of land with an area of 1.1 thousand square meters. He also has an estate in the village of Dibrova, Donetsk region, with an area of 327.7 square meters and two plots of land in the same place with an area of 3.3 thousand square meters. The MP did not ignore the Kyiv region: in Kyiv he has an apartment of 225 square meters and a garage (18.5 square meters), in the village of Novi Petrivtsi, Kyiv region, a huge estate of 722.8 square meters and a plot of land of 2.3 thousand square meters, and six more plots of land in the village of Khotonivka with a total area of 477 thousand square meters. And just in case, there is a foreign property — an apartment in the United States with an area of 279.3 square meters and in the United Kingdom — 80 square meters. He also has quite a few luxury items — Yefimov declared 43 for him and his wife, including watches, jewelry, accessories, and branded clothing. In addition, Maksym Yefimov officially owns a Lexus GX 470 (2005) and a Bombardier RXP X RS 260 jet ski, while his wife owns a Lexus GX 460 and a Range Rover (2014).
He does not like to work
MP Maksym Yefimov does not like to attend plenary sessions of the Verkhovna Rada — out of the first 122 meetings of the VIII convocation, according to the MP’s registration data through the electronic system, he attended only 28, which is approximately only 23%.
The owner of the Ochakiv wind farm, MP Yefimov, was vacationing in Courchevel with Leps, who is banned in Ukraine
People’s Deputy of Ukraine, a member of the Dovira parliamentary group, Maksym Yefimov, celebrated Christmas in an elite ski resort in the French Alps — Courchevel. This was reported by Strana.
On January 7, the restaurant Le Cap Horn, located at an altitude of 2100 meters, not far from the Courchevel airport, hosted a Christmas party with Russian singer Grigory Leps.
The cheapest seat at the table (from 5 to 18 people) cost $1000. But the closer the table to the stage, the more expensive the seats behind it.
“The party was called ‘Russian Christmas’ and was organized for rich Russians who ski and party here. This table in the restaurant was booked in advance, but other guests were always interested in it. Russian businessmen and oligarchs wanted to sit there, closer to Leps, to sing along, but the organizers said that they couldn’t cancel the reservation. Later it turned out that it had been scored by Ukrainian MP Yefimov and his company. The seat at the very first table under the stage was about $10,000,” one of the guests of the event told Strana.
The ticket price included a menu and 1 glass of prosecco (Italian dry sparkling wine). The dishes offered included foie gras (specially cooked liver of a fattened goose or duck) with bird cherry, beef carpaccio with truffles, and pizza with white truffles. Creamy razzotto with sea bream was served as a main course, and chocolate desserts were served for sweets.
“The price included a kind of minimum food, but this is haute cuisine, of course, and a drop of alcohol. You had to pay extra for everything else. But what is a Russian Christmas without pancakes with black caviar? Of course, there were pancakes and dancing to Leps,” said the source of the Strana.
The publication has a video of MP Yefimov’s festivities. He was indeed sitting at the very first table with his friends. The politician knows the songs of Grigory Leps and even sang along.
BPP MP confirms purchase of Yanukovych’s energy company
Businessman and member of the Verkhovna Rada from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc Maksym Yefimov confirmed the purchase of one of the largest electricity producers, Donbasenergo.
He said this in an interview with EP.
When asked when Yefimov’s structures would become direct or indirect shareholders of Donbasenergo, the MP replied: “It is wrong to speculate on the timing. According to the roadmap, which has been defined, it is within six months.”
“In general, the agreement has already been reached, but the formal procedures have not yet been completed. I am a public figure, and as soon as this happens, it will be reflected in my electronic declaration,” Yefimov said.
Earlier it was reported that Yanukovych and his junior situational business partner Ihor Humeniuk’s entire stake in Donbasenergo — 60.8% — would be sold to Yefimov’s structures.
Currently, this stake is registered with Energoinvest Holding.
As reported by EP, in 2016, the beneficiaries of Energoinvest Holding were Andreas Cerny (Greece) and Robert Bensch (USA).
Andreas Tserni’s real name is Andriy Chornyi. He is a native of Ukraine and is perceived in the energy market as a pupil of the owner of Zasyadko mine (Donetsk). Yukhym Zvyagilsky, the owner of the Zasyadko mine (Donetsk).
In turn, Robert Bensch is known to market participants as a representative of the interests of Mikhail Afendikov, an American businessman of Ukrainian descent who owns Cub Energy Inc. and controls the gas production companies Kub-Gaz and Tysagaz in Ukraine.
At the time of the indirect acquisition of the majority stake in Donbasenergo (in 2015-2016), Cerny and Bensch positioned themselves as the new owners of this energy company.
EP sources claim that they were nominees fronting for Oleksandr Yanukovych, who at that time had maximum problems with maintaining control over property in Ukraine.
Today’s deal, under which Maksym Yefimov will become the beneficiary of Donbasenergo, is real: the company has indeed left Yanukovych’s control.
Suspicious chairman of the commission
Maxim Yefimov has the majority of votes not only in the new convocation of the city council, but also in the territorial election commission. I talk to Serhiy Gakov, a member of the TEC from the Golos party, after he learned that a police report had been filed against him because he had failed to attend a meeting. “They know that I don’t have enough time. I am an entrepreneur, I need to feed my family. I can participate in the scheduled meetings,” explains Gakov.
And Gakov sees the main problem not even in the composition of the commission, but in its chairman, who “behaves not like the head of the TEC, but like its owner.”
The chairman of the commission is Roman Bayrak, who was nominated by the Servant of the People party. In 2015, he was the head of the same TEC from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc. Maksym Yefimov was also a member of the BPP faction at that time. In addition, according to the Kramatorsk Post, Bairak worked as a general counsel at Yefimov’s company. “It seems as if life and fortune are staked on this position,” Serhiy Gakov summarizes his impressions of working at the TEC.
Resume.
Yefimov, of course, entered politics for the sake of his own prosperity and fruitful business. Apparently, he inherited the habit of stealing money from his father, who was involved with the Kramatorsk organized crime group in the late 80s. As you can see, he hasn’t done anything good, but his financial status has risen to the level of an oligarch, and it’s not hard to guess where he gets the money.