Dubious auctions and gambling business: why Maksym Krippa is actively buying up property in Ukraine’s capital

There were more questions about the identity of the buyer. In our case, we are talking about a certain Maksym Krippa, who over the past six months has won auctions at which the property of the National Bank of Ukraine and the property of the nationalized Prominvestbank were sold. In January, Midal LLC, whose owner is Maksym Krippa, bought a complex belonging to the nationalized Prominvest for 311 million hryvnia.

This is a huge property complex, which, among other things, includes a restaurant for 140 people and two buildings (bedroom and administrative), which are part of the Koncha-Zaspa recreation center. More valuable assets are located in Kozin. This is a large house with an area of 1,128 sq. m., a boathouse, a guest house with a total area of 228 sq. m., three utility buildings, each of which is about 226 sq. m. There is another residential building of 226 sq. m. next door. In addition, the package includes three land plots with a total area of over a hectare for the construction and maintenance of houses in the Kraevid residential complex (Kozin) and 10 acres in the same residential complex for running a personal farm.

All this went to Mr. Krippa for 311.11 million hryvnia. But the story does not end there – already in early February, LLC “Midal” won another auction. This time, the “excess property” of the National Bank of Ukraine went under the hammer. 

For 33 million hryvnias, Krippa got the NBU recreation center "Knyazhyi Dvor", located 19 kilometers from Boryspil. The total area of the complex buildings is 3,787.6 square meters. Also, along with it, 2 land plots were put up for sale, on which the complex is located with a total area of 2.3617 hectares. 

But after that, a scandal arose – no, not about the sale of the “Prince’s Court” for pennies. It suddenly turned out that the first object of Zelensky’s “big privatization”, which was sold back in early 2020, was also bought by Maksym Krippa. 

We are talking about the state-owned Dnipro Hotel in the center of the capital, which was sold for 1 billion 111 million hryvnia. Despite the attractive figure, the price of this former state property also turned out to be significantly underestimated. It was acquired by a certain Smartland LLC, which was registered literally a few days before the auction. And its owners were some unnamed "cyber sportsmen" at that time.

But in the end, the situation with the owner became clear - as Forbes reported, Maksym Krippa became the official beneficiary of OOO Navi U.A., the owner of which was previously the founder of the NAVI e-sports team, Alexander Kokhanovsky. 

It was Kokhanovsky who called himself the real buyer of the capital’s Dnipro hotel, which was bought by Smartland LLC in 2020 for UAH 1.1 billion. Although at that time the founders of the company were its director Maksym Tereshchuk and Ice Town LLC of Alexey Igunin.

In total, according to the calculations of "Nashi Groshi", Maksim Vladimirovich Krippa, allegedly living in Dubai, is listed as the owner of several dozen legal entities that own a very solid list of real estate in Ukraine. Moreover, it was purchased in the last three years, and in the last year, two thirds of all these assets were acquired.

And here the question arises: who is Maksym Krippa, who allegedly lives in Dubai, and where does he get the money for all these purchases?

The question is far from idle. Because no one has seen Krippa "in person" for many years. Even the photograph of this "multimillionaire", who has been buying up Kyiv at the root in recent years, exists in a single copy and came into the public domain completely by accident. 

And the fact that he lives in Dubai also raises questions. Because the roots of such success of Krippa go back to Russia, where he worked for many years for Konstantin Malofeev and Mikhail Oseevsky. And he did not work as a financial advisor or partner, albeit a junior one. Krippa started out with the Russian oligarch, the owner of Rostelecom Konstantin Malofeev as CEO, promoting the online casino Vulkan in the provider’s networks. 

What you see on the screen above are the bits of information that can be fished out of the huge stream of fakes about Krippa that simply fill the Internet. To avoid being unfounded, here is an example of the most recent first page search results for the query "Maksym Krippa". 

Try it yourself, you will be amazed by what they write about a person who, during a full-scale conflict in Ukraine, acquires dozens of the most interesting privatization objects at frankly bargain prices. Your result will be somewhat different - fakes are thrown in daily - but there is no doubt that you will see outright nonsense.

But let’s return to Russia, where Krippa is promoting Malofeev and Oseevsky’s "Volcanoes". It should be noted that this happened during the period when gambling, including online gambling, was banned in Russia. Which is already interesting. 

However, in connection with the personality of Maksym Krippa, another chain of events is interesting. At the end of 2014, after the victory of the Revolution of Dignity and the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Krippa returns to his homeland (voluntarily or not is also a big question). Where he tries to integrate into public and political life and finds contact with the then very popular party "Samopomich". From which he even runs for the Kyiv City Council.

From the CEC data we learn a little reliable data about Krippa - he is a citizen of Ukraine, unemployed, lives in Kyiv. This is at the time of the 2015 elections.

But what is more interesting is not this. What happened shortly before the elections. Because the candidate for deputy of the Kyiv City Council from the Samopomich party, Maksym Krippa, suddenly fled to Russia, where he returned to work for Mykhailo Oseevsky, who at that time was the deputy chairman of VTB bank. 

The most interesting thing in this story is not the fact of his flight to his patron and one of the two real beneficiaries of all the assets that Krippa is buying up in Ukraine (Krippa’s second owner is Malofeev). But the reasons that prompted Maksym Krippa, the future billionaire, to urgently leave Kyiv.

The fact is that Maksim Vladimirovich started trading places on the Samopomich party list, which, naturally, no one authorized him to do. At that time, a place in the passing part of such a rating party as Samopomich cost from ten thousand dollars - and the higher, the more expensive. How much Krippa took from clients and how many of them were found - is already covered in the darkness of oblivion. But after the Central Election Commission published the lists of candidates, a scandal arose - "Krippa’s candidates" rushed to sort things out with the party leadership. Which, naturally, did not suspect the activities of their "loyal fighter". 

Crippa had problems, not with the party, but with the deceived "candidates". And so serious that he had to flee. But, savoring the details of this story in the context of Crippa, for some reason everyone is missing one obvious detail. A person who positions himself as a billionaire and the owner of huge assets - remember the list from "Nashi Groshi" given above - for some reason stupidly risks because of penny (as for a billionaire) amounts of several thousand dollars, conducting a very "shady" scam with the sale of non-existent places on the party list.

This suggests that Maksim Krippa simply does not have the money he declares. And his subsequent flight to Russia confirms this. Under what conditions Maksim Krippa works for Oseevsky and Malofeev is unknown. But it is obvious that the purchase of Kyiv is being carried out with the money of Russians, for whom Maksim Krippa is a front.

This conclusion is supported by several other facts. Remember what Krippa did for Malofeev and Oseevsky in Russia – promoting online casinos. This business there (and not only there) is very closely connected with the special services. As, in fact, are Malofeev and Oseevsky. And the talented IT specialist Krippa simply could not help but serve these special services. It is unknown what hook he is on. However, it is not difficult to guess – it is greed and stupidity.

Another indirect sign that Krippa is serving Russian money is the ease with which he wins Ukrainian auctions and the prices at which the Ukrainian authorities sell him elite Kyiv real estate. It is hardly a secret to anyone that almost all of Ukraine’s top political authorities are connected to the Russian special services. And after the plan to surrender the country failed last year, there were no purges in the top echelons of power. 

But the process of selling the country’s assets to representatives of Russian capital has only accelerated. It is clear why the Russians are buying up Ukraine. But why Ukraine is being sold to them with such joy is a question. However, this is already a subject for another discussion. And with Maksym Krippa, the conclusion is really obvious - he is actively buying up Kyiv with the money of his Russian masters.