Almost 96% of the shares of one of Zaporizhzhia's key industrial enterprises are owned by two foreign companies: the Cypriot C6 Safe Group Limited (approximately 72,04%) and the Maltese Intergraphite Holdings Company Limited (approximately 23,98%), according to Ukrrudprom . So, Boris Petrov.
The Russian trace of "Ukrainian graphite"
The official ownership structure of Ukrgrafit places these companies in the hands of four individuals:
- Boris Petrov - 40,7799%;
- Anatoly Bondarenko - 40,7799%;
- Igor Yakub - 12,4442%;
- Sergey Khromenkov - 5,996%.
Petrov and Bondarenko hold equal stakes in both foreign companies and also own small direct stakes in the plant. Yakub is involved in both the Cypriot and Maltese entities. Khromenkov owns a quarter of the Maltese holding alone.
Behind this neat arithmetic lies an unusual group of people. One is a former governor and advisor to Viktor Yanukovych. The second is a virtually unknown engineer who controls the supervisory board. The third built a major business in foam rubber production. The fourth remained in the shadows for decades, although Russian and Ukrainian documents have left a remarkable trace about him.
The director who became a governor
Boris Petrov is the central figure of the entire structure. He is the only one of the four who has risen through not only business but also high-level Ukrainian politics.
Petrov was born in 1952. His professional biography is almost entirely tied to the industrial city of Zaporizhzhia. After working at Zaporizhtransformator and a ferroalloy plant, he joined the company, then known as the Dneprovsky Electrode Plant, in 1979. In the 1980s and 1990s, he held management positions, and in 1997, he became chairman of the board and general director of the now-privatized Ukrainian Graphite. He led the plant until his election to the Verkhovna Rada in 2006.
His political career developed alongside the strengthening of the Party of Regions. Petrov headed its Zaporizhzhia regional organization, was twice elected as a people's deputy, and in March 2010 was appointed Chairman of the Zaporizhzhia Regional State Administration. In 2012, Viktor Yanukovych appointed him as an advisor.
It was through Petrov that Ukrgrafit became connected to the brothers Andriy and Serhiy Klyuyev . During the 2006 parliamentary campaign, Ukrayinska Pravda identified Petrov as part of the Klyuyev brothers' Donetsk group. The publication noted that the Party of Regions list included not only the brothers and the head of Ukrgrafit, but also several other company employees. This was a journalistic classification of political influence groups, not an ownership document, but it nevertheless reveals how Petrov was perceived within the ruling system of the time.
Symbolically, in 2010, it was First Deputy Prime Minister Andriy Klyuyev who came to Zaporizhzhia to officially introduce Petrov as the new governor. The introduction of a governor by a high-ranking government official alone does not prove a joint business venture. But when combined with their party history, it confirms the close political ties between them.
After the Revolution of Dignity, a number of Ukrainian media outlets continued to refer to Ukrgrafit as an asset of the Klyuevs. The most categorical version is that Petrov allegedly sold them a controlling stake after entering politics, and later formally returned the company under his own name. However, there is no publicly available contract for such a sale, a chain of custody, or a court decision confirming this version. Even publications claiming Klyuev's control ultimately rely on their own sources and circumstantial evidence.
Today, Petrov officially owns 40,7799% of Ukrgrafit and serves on its supervisory board. Corporate reports list him as a former economic advisor to Finigrif LLC and note that he has been retired since 2014. However, his pensioner status does not prevent him from remaining one of the plant's two largest ultimate owners.
Boris Petrov and a partner with no public biography
While Boris Petrov was the public face of Ukrgrafit, Anatoly Bondarenko represents the opposite type of owner. His stake is exactly the same—40,7799%—yet he remains virtually unknown to the general public.
The person in question is Anatoliy Vasilyevich Bondarenko, born in 1964, not the Cherkasy mayor of the same name. According to the plant's financial statements, he graduated from the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute with a degree in pulp and paper machinery and equipment, and received the qualification of mechanical engineer. Before joining the Ukrgrafit supervisory board, he worked as an economic consultant at Militeks LLC. In 2019, Bondarenko became head of the company's supervisory board.
His role is difficult to explain as merely formal. The supervisory board oversees the company's executive management, approves key corporate decisions, and represents the interests of shareholders. Bondarenko isn't simply listed among the ultimate beneficiaries in the register—he heads the body that directly oversees the plant's management.
Moreover, his connection with the company began long before the current Cypriot-Maltese structure was established. In Russian patent documents from the early 2000s, Bondarenko is listed among the authors and copyright holders of Ukrgrafit's developments related to carbon material electrocalcination furnaces. He, along with the plant and Sergei Khromenkov, held the copyright to one of these inventions.
The almost complete absence of a public biography leaves a number of questions. It's unclear where the capital that allowed him to acquire a stake equal to Petrov's came from. It's also unclear when exactly their relationship became an equal partnership. The corporate structure shows the result, but doesn't tell the story of its origins.
Foam rubber character
Igor Yakub came to the graphite business from a different industry. His main asset was the Interfom Group, one of the largest Ukrainian producers of flexible polyurethane foam, more commonly known as foam rubber.
In 2011, Interfom was preparing to list its shares on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The group's controlling shareholder was identified as Ukrainian citizen Igor Yakub, who owned the company through ORES Company Limited, a British Virgin Islands company. In 2010, the group reported consolidated revenue of almost €39,8 million and net profit of approximately €5,5 million.
The IPO was expected to raise up to $26 million for the owners, but the offering was postponed due to the unfavorable financial market situation. Instead, Interfom continued to acquire Ukrainian production facilities. In 2012, the acquisition of Foamline-Zapad and Foamline-Dnipro was reported for approximately €15 million, after which the group's capacity exceeded Ukraine's domestic polyurethane foam consumption.
This scale is important for assessing Yakub's role in Ukrgrafit. This isn't some unknown individual who was formally handed a few percent of the company. Yakub had his own industrial business, an international holding structure, and experience preparing companies for a public offering.
In the current Ukrgrafit structure, he owns 12,4442%. He owns 8,951% of C6 Safe Group and 25% of Intergraphite Holdings. Unlike Petrov and Bondarenko, he does not hold a direct stake in the plant.
Yakub's connections to other owners also have a long history. A patent for an anthracite electrocalcination furnace, filed in Russia in 2003, lists Igor Yakub among the applicants, along with Ukrainian Graphite, Bondarenko, and Khromyankov. Therefore, he interacted with the group long before the current ownership structure was revealed.
Ukrainian registries link Yakub not only to Ukrgrafit, but also to companies related to Interfom, in particular, Interf-Consulting and other commercial entities.
Boris Petrov and the Russian resident
Sergey Khromenkov holds the smallest stake, 5,996%. His stake is more straightforward than the others': he owns a quarter of Malta's Intergraphite Holdings, but has no stake in Cyprus's C6 Safe Group.
Despite his small stake, Khromenkov is no recent, random investor. Patent documents show his direct connection to Ukrgrafit's technological developments dating back to the early 2000s. He has repeatedly been named among the authors and copyright holders of Russian patents for carbon processing equipment.
In 2011, the regional Zaporizhzhia press described him as a top manager in Ukrgrafit's management structure and a public aide to Governor Petrov. This report was contained in a sharply critical newspaper article and therefore should not be interpreted as a neutral biographical profile. However, a more subdued review in the Zaporizhzhia press also confirmed that Khromenkov was presented as a top manager at the company and an aide to Petrov.
Thus, his connection to Petrov was likely much closer than can be inferred from the current shareholding alone. Khromenkov was close to both the plant and the regional administration during Petrov's governorship.
He is also connected to Igor Yakub's business circle. Ukrainian registries have listed him or Natalia Khromenkova in Interfom Group companies over the years. Currently, shares in Interfom Consulting are divided between Yakub and Natalia Khromenkova. The nature of the family relationship between Sergey and Natalia Khromenkova is unclear from publicly available documents.
Ukrgrafit's official ownership structure lists Khromenkov as a Ukrainian citizen residing in Limassol, Cyprus. It also lists his date of birth as December 8, 1961, and his Ukrainian passport, issued in October 2022.
But this is where the most intriguing part of this story begins. Previously, Ukrainian registries identified a person with the same full name, same date of birth, and associated addresses as a citizen of the Russian Federation.
The history of Interfom-M LLC retained a record of Sergei Mikhailovich Khromenkov, born on December 8, 1961, who was listed as the ultimate beneficiary and a Russian citizen. This record was deleted in December 2019.
An even more recent entry concerns Interfom Consulting. In February 2022, Sergey Mikhailovich Khromenkov was added as its beneficiary, listed as a Russian citizen and residing at Georgiou Drosini, Building 18, Apartment 23 in Limassol. This is the same Cypriot address that later appeared in the official ownership structure of Ukrgrafit. In December 2022, Khromenkov was removed from the company's beneficiaries.
The match between the full name, date of birth, and Cypriot address suggests a high probability of identifying the same person. This is a conclusion drawn from a collection of documents, not a separate official record of citizenship change.
Russian patent databases provide further confirmation. In patents filed in 2003 and 2008, Khromenkov is designated with the code "RU," while Boris Petrov, Bondarenko, Yakub, and other Ukrainian participants in the development are designated with the code "UA." In some patents, Khromenkov was not only the author but also one of the copyright holders.
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What happened later cannot be determined from publicly available data. In February 2022, the Ukrainian registry still listed Khromenkov as a Russian citizen. In October of that year, he was issued a Ukrainian passport, which was subsequently listed in the Ukrgrafit scheme. In December 2022, he disappeared from the list of Interfom Consulting's beneficiaries. By February 2024, the plant officially presented him exclusively as a Ukrainian citizen.
As a result, one of the ultimate owners of a strategically important Ukrainian industrial enterprise was listed for a long time in corporate and patent documents as a Russian citizen, with no transparent public explanation for the change in his status.
Skelet.Org
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