Could this be "Mindichgate"? A closer look at that friend of the president's
National joint 24/7 newscast – Mindich. Oleksii Chernyshov – Mindich. Drones – Mindich. Missiles – Mindich. Energy – Mindich. Cabinet of Ministers – Mindich. Banks – Mindich.
The name Mindich has been all over Ukrainian politics for over a year now.
The man who was once oligarch Ihor Kolomoiskyi's youngest partner and media asset holder appears to have transformed into one of Ukraine's grey eminences.
This, of course, would have been impossible without his friendship with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who entered the country's top office on Bankova Street in 2019 – or without Russia's full-scale invasion, which brought about an indefinite suspension of democratic processes in Ukraine, including accountability and government transparency.
At present, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) will neither confirm nor deny the so-called "Mindich tapes". In other words, no comment. So Ukrainska Pravda decided to tell the story of this particular friend of the president's, whose name has been cropping up in the media even more frequently since the start of the campaign against Ukraine's anti-corruption bodies.
All the more so given that according to Ukrainska Pravda sources in the US political establishment, the FBI has also begun to take an interest in Mindich's activities. Moreover, just a few weeks ago, the lights were back on in the apartment in Kyiv's government quarter where listening devices were found last summer.
The favourite
"The president could spend a weekend with him. Have a barbecue, relax and unwind." That was how a prominent Ukrainian businessman, speaking off the record, described Mindich's relationship with Zelenskyy.
"Tymur is all about hotels, restaurants and suits," added a former political heavyweight, painting a picture of the president's favourite.
Here's how both sources described Mindich's role prior to the full-scale invasion.
"He was never a player. He held some of Kolomoiskyi's assets informally, imported designer clothes into Ukraine, made small side profits, could ask the president for a favour – but that was it," one of them said.
Business sources told Ukrainska Pravda that it was Mindich who recommended Oleksii Chernyshov to Zelenskyy at the start of his presidency. "Tymur was asked about him [Chernyshov – ed.]. Tymur said he was a good guy," one of them recalled.
That might explain the rapid rise of Chernyshov's career – from head of Kyiv Oblast State Administration in 2019 to deputy prime minister in 2024.
Influential MPs told Ukrainska Pravda that Chernyshov had serious prime-ministerial ambitions. Alongside Yuliia Svyrydenko, he was repeatedly discussed as a potential replacement for former PM Denys Shmyhal.
Those ambitions were dashed in June 2025, when NABU and SAPO served him with a notice of suspicion for abuse of office and accepting a particularly large bribe – a case Ukrainska Pravda covered in detail earlier this year.
A year ago, when Mindich's name began to crop up in connection with various areas of government life, opinions on his influence varied.
Politicians said there was "too much Mindich" everywhere. Business leaders, on the other hand, struggled to believe that someone once regarded as a lowly aide could have grown into a figure with both political and media clout.
Going by the criteria of Zelenskyy's 2021 "de-oligarchisation" law, by 2024 Mindich would have easily fitted the definition of an oligarch, albeit an unofficial one.
His name first surfaced publicly in 2019, when Zelenskyy began using Mindich's armoured Mercedes in the final stretch of his presidential campaign.
Early in 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, Ukrainska Pravda journalists documented Mindich making three visits to the president's office. He said he was visiting his friend Andrii Yermak, Head of the Office of the President.
"I went there to offer to help – as a person, as a friend, and as a citizen – in connection with the coronavirus. I have experience in organising deliveries of packages, food and so on."
Mindich after a visit to the President's Office. Photo: Radio Liberty
In early 2021, Zelenskyy celebrated his birthday in Mindich's apartment in defiance of Covid restrictions, which generated considerable controversy at the time.
The president told the present writer at the time: "The Kvartal 95 studio and Mr Mindich knew I'd be spending my birthday at home, so they decided to surprise me. They invited me up to the apartment – I climbed a few flights of stairs [Zelenskyy lived in the same building – ed.], walked in, and yes, it was quite a surprise."
Ukrainska Pravda sources noted that this was the same apartment where NABU later discovered surveillance equipment.
By the end of 2021, Mindich was among the guests at Andrii Yermak's birthday celebration at Syniohora, the state residence in the Carpathians.
When Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, the government quarter in Kyiv was closed for security reasons. As a result, it became impossible to monitor whether Mindich continued to visit the President's Office, or to track any social gatherings or other interactions.
But political and business sources alike say that period marked the true ascent of Tymur Mindich – the president's friend who never held an official post, but gained real influence.
Mindich 2.0
2024 was the year Tymur Mindich really started to rise within Volodymyr Zelenskyy's system of power, a well-connected business source has said.
"He started to loom large after he brought his people into the Cabinet of Ministers. Then he kept having people over at his home, pitching ideas. He was suddenly everywhere."
The source added that the president no longer had a talent bench of candidates for this or that position. In September 2024, several people linked to the businessman received ministerial portfolios after a partial government reshuffle.
Among those seen as within Mindich's sphere of influence were then energy minister Herman Halushchenko, environment minister Svitlana Hrynchuk and agriculture minister Vitalii Koval. Notably, neither Halushchenko nor Hrynchuk fell by the wayside after the next Cabinet reshuffle in mid-2025: Hrynchuk took over Halushchenko's post, while Halushchenko moved to the Ministry of Justice.
"There are only a few areas now where big money is made in Ukraine: defence (drones), energy, reconstruction, and call centres," a prominent businessman said off the record.
And, as numerous sources in business, politics and law enforcement have told Ukrainska Pravda, Mindich is present in the first two sectors.
2024 was a breakthrough year for Ukrainian defence tech company Fire Point, which began to receive multi-billion-hryvnia state contracts to manufacture long-range drones.
In November last year alone, two contracts worth over UAH 7 billion (about US$167 million) were signed with a company linked to Mindich, sources in the defence sector said. Ukrainska Pravda's sources in defence insist that in addition to funding from Ukraine's state budget, Fire Point has also received money from Western partners.
A month ago, Ukrainian newspaper Dzerkalo Tyzhnia (Mirror of the Week) published an interview with Fire Point's chief designer Denys Shtilerman, in which he explained the company's meteoric rise.
"Go and win open trials or a competitive tender and you'll get funding. If you have a successful product that doesn't just work on paper or in your dreams, but in real life as well, you will get contracts."
Shtilerman also denied that Mindich is the real owner of the company.
"Mindich has zero influence on the company, he is not a co-owner. As for his influence, he came to us when we won the trials at the test range. He was very interested in the company and said he wanted to become a shareholder. Nothing came of it because we turned him down. We've crossed paths on our own stuff, since we're both Jewish. But nothing to do with the company."
Sources in law enforcement agencies told Ukrainska Pravda that in January 2025, NABU filed an official request with the State Financial Monitoring Service of Ukraine to disclose Fire Point's cash flows, yet so far there have been no results.
After reports emerged about Fire Point's possible links with Mindich and NABU launched an investigation into alleged overpricing of drones or individual components, the company's management decided to "play it safe", as sources in the defence sector say, and sell a stake in Fire Point to a buyer from Saudi Arabia.
Further evidence of Mindich's sway over the state energy sector emerged this summer, when NABU and SAPO detained one of his relatives, Leonid Mindich, as he was attempting to leave the country. Investigators say that in 2021 he took personal control of energy equipment procurement at Kharkivoblenergo, Kharkiv's electricity transmission system operator, and influenced procurement by other state-owned companies in the energy sector.
Sources in political and business circles also told Ukrainska Pravda that Mindich may have gained leverage in the banking sector, particularly over Sense Bank (which was nationalised after the full-scale invasion due to its ties with Russia), via the institution's management.
For example, Mindich started to associate with Vasyl Veselyi, one of the bank's unofficial "overseers" and an adviser to the chair of the bank's supervisory board. In 2024, whether by coincidence or not, Veselyi's family obtained a stake in Karpatnaftokhim, Ukraine's largest petrochemical company, when the company's seizure was overturned in court.
"Nothing really changed when the information about the tapes came out," a source close to the Office of the President said. "The President's Office realises that there may be something about Tymur on them, but they don't believe there can be [any evidence of] corruption on the tapes beyond mundane chatter. When might they be released? This year? Next year? Mindich openly travels to Ukraine, showing he has no trouble with the law."
Ukrainska Pravda has received information that Mindich recently travelled to Ukraine – his second visit since reports of the tapes surfaced – and met Kyrylo Budanov, Head of Defence Intelligence of Ukraine (DIU). Intent on retaining his influence and his post, Budanov is positioning himself as useful to the President's Office in assisting with both the Chernyshov "issue" (it was DIU that brought Chernyshov back to Ukraine to be served with a notice of suspicion by NABU) and possible "issues" with Mindich.
"We saw a real push online claiming the Russians were 'hunting Mindich down'," a senior law enforcement source told Ukrainska Pravda off the record. "Photos were posted that showed DIU personnel alongside members of some Serbian criminal underworld."
In all the numerous pieces, the copy was identical: "Austrian special services in Vienna have recorded a meeting between representatives of Ukrainian military intelligence and contacts in a Serbian criminal group… DIU sent a team of special forces to Vienna. It included the commander of the elite Artan unit, former sniper Viktor Torkotiuk, alias Titan. The team's mission was to do everything possible to cancel the 'hit' and ensure Mindich's safe return to Ukraine."
"The President's Office asked us to look into this bogus story. It turned out that DIU were the ones pushing it – and the photos were theirs too," several sources from law enforcement agencies told Ukrainska Pravda.
"Make Mindich small again"
A few months ago, Ukrainska Pravda heard from influential sources in the US establishment that Tymur Mindich could become the subject of an official FBI investigation that may relate to money laundering.
The investigation names several individuals and companies besides Mindich himself. Among the subjects of the inquiry, sources say, are an offshore company from the British Virgin Islands, a UK-registered company, and a man known by the alias "Sugarman".
A similar name – Tsukerman – came up in investigations by MP Yaroslav Zhelezniak into corruption at the Odesa Port Plant (OPP), Ukraine's largest manufacturer of chemical products.
According to Zhelezniak, businessman Mykhailo Tsukerman and companies linked to him were involved in the OPP's operations prior to the full-scale invasion. It was then that informal control over the state company may have shifted from one co-owner of Kvartal 95, Serhii Shefir, to another – Tymur Mindich. This might have remained a local news story had the characters not scattered across the world.
In April 2023 several members of a criminal gang accused of embezzling funds from Odesa Port Plant JSC were declared wanted by NABU.
A statement from NABU reads: "On 22 March 2023, NABU and SAPO exposed a criminal organisation led by the former head of the State Property Fund of Ukraine. Throughout 2019-2021, its members embezzled UAH 500 million from Odesa Port Plant JSC and United Mining and Chemical Company JSC. The amount of illegal profit gained by the group during its entire period of control over Odesa Port Plant is in excess of UAH 2 billion."
It later emerged that one of the suspects in the case, Oleksandr Gorbunenko, had fled to the United States, where, coincidentally, the FBI would also make an appearance in his life.
Ukrainska Pravda has examined the criminal case files against Gorbunenko, which were considered in the US Federal Court in 2024-25. Public records include more than 100 pages of materials titled USA v. Gorbunenko.
According to the files, Gorbunenko arrived in the United States on a tourist visa on 15 February 2022, a few days before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine started. In April that year he applied for temporary protected status, apparently due to the full-scale invasion, and this was granted.
In 2023 NABU declared Gorbunenko wanted. Just a few months later, Gorbunenko asked the United States to extend his refugee status, but failed to mention in his application that Ukrainian law enforcement had some questions for him.
NABU and SAPO informed Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) that Gorbunenko was a suspect in a criminal investigation and might be residing in Florida.
On 3 October 2024, HSI Special Agent Igor Demidoff located and interviewed Gorbunenko in Miami. Gorbunenko's refugee status was revoked in early 2025. Agent Demidoff then filed a criminal complaint with the court, and Judge Enjoliqué Lett signed a warrant for his arrest.
The very next day, Gorbunenko suddenly decided to fly to the best place in the world to hide from extradition – Dubai. But he was out of time. On 17 April 2025, he was arrested at the airport. He tried to explain that he had been planning to "reenter the US", but he was taken into custody.
According to Ukrainska Pravda sources in law enforcement, once he was in custody, NABU and SAPO attempted to contact Gorbunenko officially to question him.
During one of the conversations, questions were raised about Tymur Mindich. Shortly afterwards, FBI representatives unexpectedly removed Gorbunenko from custody, and instead of being deported, fined or imprisoned, he was released and placed under protection. This may indicate that Gorbunenko had agreed to cooperate with the Americans.
"Gorbunenko may have been laundering money – like all the other participants in the OPP scheme," one representative of Ukraine's law enforcement system said. "So obviously he may have been of interest to the federal authorities not only in connection with Mindich, but also regarding other influential users of money-laundering schemes."
The last entry in the publicly available materials in this case is dated 26 July 2025. Coincidentally, that was around the time that the President's Office, with the help of parliament, was attempting to destroy the independence of NABU and SAPO.
Between Ukraine and Israel
Most of the sources interviewed by our editorial team emphasised that Mindich may have reached his peak during the full-scale invasion. They note that the events surrounding influence over the Odesa Port Plant, dating back to 2021, and his relative Leonid's ventures at Kharkivoblenergo were only the beginning of this meteoric rise.
Some discussions and Shabbat gatherings had taken place even before Russia's invasion in February 2022, but few of the participants realised the extent of their potential at the time.
"Timur is a good organiser. He has direct access to the president. But he never had big money and he was never an independent player," recalls one influential member of the informal Privat group, which effectively ceased to exist after Ihor Kolomoiskyi's arrest at the end of 2023.
According to Ukrainska Pravda business sources, in September this year Mindich celebrated his birthday in Israel. In mid-October he returned to Kyiv, only to travel back to Israel shortly afterwards.Did the July attack on NABU and SAPO affect the investigation into the president's inner circle? Will the recordings made in Mindich's apartment ever be released? And most importantly – did Mindich exercise control over Ukraine's energy sector and influence the heavyweight defence company Fire Point? Was he acting independently or with approval from higher up? And will he return to Ukraine in the near future, or wait out potential blackouts abroad?
For now, all we can say for sure is this: Tymur Mindich remains Ukraine's most private yet best-connected businessman, with only a few photographs of him available online.
Mindich did not respond to Ukrainska Pravda's requests for comment.
He remains a co-owner of Kvartal 95.
Mykhailo Tkach, Sevğil Musaieva, UP
Translation: Myroslava Zavadska, Anna Briedova and Anastasiia Yankina
Editing: Teresa Pearce