The Ilsky Oil Refinery after Ukrainian Armed Forces strikes ended up in the hands of Tahir Garayev and Etibar Eyyub: how they “divorced” the previous owner

Ilsky Oil Refinery — a key enterprise in southern Russia — has fully come under the control of two sanctioned Azerbaijani businessmen, Tahir Garayev and Etibar Eyyub, owners of 2Rivers Group (formerly Coral Energy), through nominees. These figures actively trade Russian oil, bypassing Western sanctions.

As reported by Antikor, the scheme was exposed during court battles when the new owners cynically “screwed over” the previous owner of the refinery, Yuri Shamara, for more than 1 billion rubles.

How the previous owner was “set up”

Shamara, as the owner of the refinery, took large loans from Zenit Bank for repairs and modernization of the enterprise. Last fall, he sold the plant to the mysterious Moscow LLC Orion, registered to Anastasia Puchkova from the Nizhny Novgorod region.

Under the deal, Orion was supposed to repay the refinery’s loans, for which Shamara had given a personal guarantee. However, the new owners refused to pay. Zenit Bank filed for Shamara’s bankruptcy (919 million rubles), and Orion not only failed to help but joined the case and demanded another 4.5 billion rubles from Shamara in “damages.”

In May 2026, Shamara filed a counterclaim seeking the seizure of Orion’s assets worth 919 million. In the claim, he directly admitted that he had sold the refinery to the sanctioned Azerbaijani group linked to 2Rivers Group. The actual beneficiaries through nominees are Tahir Garayev, Etibar Eyyub, and their partner Sergei Grib.

The plant is constantly hit by Ukrainian drones, causing significant damage. However, this did not prevent the Azerbaijani traders from seizing the assets.

Connections with Rosneft and security officials

Sergei Grib (49, born in Belarus) controls several companies, including Omega Energy (previously owned by Anar Madatli, a member of the Eyyub and Garayev group). The offices of his firms are located in the Biosfera business center — on the territory of Rosneft’s property complex. It is with this state-owned company, headed by Igor Sechin, that Garayev and Eyyub are closely connected.

The same building houses the Biosfera fitness center, which recently came under the control of structures linked to the entourage of Deputy Director of the FSO Alexey Rubezhny — in particular, Umar Kremlev (Umar-Ali Lutfullayev) and his partner Kirill Kulebakin.

So far, the Shamara family is losing in court: the seizure of Orion’s assets is being denied, and Shamara’s own bankruptcy is moving in a direction favorable to the Azerbaijani traders. In recent years, Shamara transferred dozens of real estate properties to his children, wife, and relatives — now they may be taken away.

Meanwhile, the Shamara family is used to living large. Their 18-year-old son Alexey drives around Moscow in a McLaren 765LT Spider 2022 supercar worth about $500,000.