This investigation was prepared in partnership with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), the Ukrainian portal NGL.media, the Serbian publication KRIK, the Greek project Inside Story, with the support of CyberPartisans and using documents from the Cyprus Confidential project organised by ICIJ and Paper Trail Media.

Flight from Ukraine and a Greek "golden visa"

Before fleeing Ukraine, Dyminskyy was a prominent figure in business and politics. He was involved in the oil and energy business, served a member of parliament, owned the Lviv football club Karpaty and the ZIK TV channel. In 2016, his fortune was estimated at $103 million — he was ranked 44th on the Forbes list of the richest Ukrainians. 

In August 2017, Petro Dyminskyy's Mercedes got into an accident in the Lviv region, the investigation believes. The 31-year-old woman whose car the businessman's vehicle crashed into died on the spot. After the accident, Dyminskyy's security guard claimed that he himself — the security guard — was behind the wheel, but four days later the police found this was not the case and summoned the businessman for questioning. The dead woman's brother claimed that Dyminskyy himself was driving the Mercedes at the time of the accident.

The next day, a private jet took Dyminskyy from Lviv to Geneva.

Since then, Dyminskyy has been on the run for eight years. Ukrainian police still consider him a suspect in that criminal case, yet the businessman's exact whereabouts remain unknown. His activity was spotted in Turkey, Poland, Latvia and Greece.

Inside Story journalists also found his traces in Greece. Two months following the accident, Dyminskyy bought a two-story house with a compound in the Athens suburb of Voula for 280,000 euros. [*] This investment allowed him to obtain a Greek "golden visa", which he renewed in November 2022.

Greece's "golden visa" program provided a residence permit with the opportunity to travel around Europe to foreigners who have invested at least €250,000 in real estate. Greek police and the Ministry of Migration have not provided direct answers to questions regarding Dyminskyy's case, limiting themselves to references to the law and suggesting that we contact other authorities. The ministry added that such residence permits could be revoked if a crime is committed. Dyminskyy himself did not answer journalists' questions sent through his daughter and lawyer.

Arms deal through Belarusian bank 

After fleeing Ukraine, Dyminskyy was still actively engaged in his business. In 2019, two years after the accident, he sold ZIK TV to pro-Russian MP Taras Kozak, a close associate of Putin's crony Viktor Medvedchuk. After the transferred ownership, the TV channel began broadcasting Russian propaganda, resulting in top managers quitting. In 2021, Ukrainian authorities blocked its broadcasting.

According to documents from Dyminskyy's Cypriot company Ablemark Limited, the transaction amounted to $27.5 million. In the leaked data from Cyprus Confidential, we found that the transfer went through the Belarusian ZAO Absolutbank (CJSC ABSOLUTBANK, a closed joint stock company under the laws of Belarus). It was owned by businessman Mikalai Varabei, a person involved in the sanctions list, dubbed "Lukashenko’s moneybag" and a partner of Viktor Medvedchuk in the media. [*]

Ukrainian political scientist Yevhen Mahda believes that given Dyminskyy's involvement in the Kontinuum business group, his ties with Belarus could have been formed back in the days when Lukashenko was Ukraine's "hybrid ally" and supplied it with combustibles and lubricants and dual-use goods. According to Mahda, Belarus's financial system allows for informal agreements with Lukashenko's inner circle that have lasted for years. "Belarus could well prove a safe haven for Dyminskyy, since the West Ukrainian is unlikely to feel comfortable in Russia, and Lukashenko has been willingly accepting Ukrainians who prefer emigration since 2014", the expert notes.

Ablemark Limited used the proceeds to issue multimillion-dollar loans to various companies. One of the borrowers was Jikinto Limited, which, in February 2020, received an interest-free loan of at least 2.6 million euros. A month later, the Serbian Ministry of Trade granted the company permission to export weapons from Serbia.

That same year, Jikinto Limited supplied weapons from state-owned Serbian factories to the Ugandan Ministry of Defense for a total of nearly $10 million. According to leaked documents from Cyprus Confidential, in November 2020, Jikinto Limited repaid Ablemark Limited part of the loan, $1.6 million, through another Belarusian bank, OAO Bank BelVEB. It is unknown whether the rest of the loan was repaid. The real owner of Jikinto Limited remains unknown. [*]

OCCRP journalists found that two months following the arms export, in September 2020, Dyminskyy's wife Olena was granted Serbian citizenship. The businessman himself had held Serbian citizenship since at least 2017. The Serbian Interior Ministry said the decision was made “in the interests of the state”, but did not provide any details.

Belarusian link: Banks, companies, and real estate

The Belarusian trace in Dyminskyy's history appeared not only through the banks involved in settlements with arms trading companies. As discovered by journalists in the Cyprus Confidential data leak, he negotiated the purchase of the Belarusian ZAT BTA Bank (a closed joint stock company under the laws of Belarus) through Ablemark Limited.

In February 2021, the businessman's lawyer sent a letter in which he reported that "the Central Bank of Belarus advised to indicate a citizen of Serbia as the beneficiary of Ablemark". After that, Olena Dyminska officially became a shareholder of Ablemark Limited, using her Serbian citizenship. [*]  The deal, however, never took place: in June 2024, BTA Bank was bought by TOO SNRG Capital Eurasia (a limited liability partnership  under the laws of Kazakhstan), which Dyminskyy had no relation to. 

Pavlo Rad, a junior researcher at the Ukrainian Prism Foreign Policy Council, shared his opinion with the BIC, stating that Belarusian banks attract criminal suspects residing abroad due to the country's isolation from Western financial systems and the low probability of cooperation with foreign law enforcement agencies when seizing foreign accounts. "In addition, weaker money laundering controls compared to Western institutions, coupled with the willingness of banks to work with related companies, help ensure that Belarusian banks can choose business figures who have a run-in with the law abroad", he explained.

Among the persons who received a power of attorney from Ablemark Limited to purchase BTA Bank in 2021 was Belarusian Maryan Liubich, who was ranked in the top 11 largest Belarusian investors in the Latvian economy a year earlier. He is also associated with Dyminskyy through companies in Belarus and Lithuania. [*]

In December 2019, Ablemark Limited issued a loan of $562,000 to OOO Evraziyski Informacionny Kommercheski Tsentr (EIKT) (a limited liability company under the laws of Belarus). [*] Maryan Liubich is one of this company's founders, as well as a beneficiary of the Lithuanian UAB Maitreja, which also received a loan of 1.6 million euros from Ablemark Limited in 2021. That year, Maitreja's revenue was 4.7 million euros, but the company did not earn anything in 2023. According to their website, the company focuses on wholesale and export of wood chips and pellets. In 2019, Maitreja invested 2.5 million euros in its Belarusian subsidiary OOO Akitama (a limited liability company under the laws of Belarus).

The BIC journalists tried to contact Maryan Liubich for a comment. In a phone conversation, he said he knew nothing about the Ablemark Limited deal and refused to answer any questions.

Dyminskyy's interests also affected the Belarusian real-estate market. A meeting of the board of directors of Ablemark Limited in September 2021 hosted a discussion that the company was willing to increase investments in Belarus. [*] Possible projects involved an unfinished housing estate in Vitsebsk, developed by OOO Stroytorgservis (a limited liability company under the laws of Belarus) with financial support from OAO Bank BelVEB (a open joint-stock company under the laws of Belarus). As the developer owed money to the bank, Ablemark Limited planned to negotiate the purchase of the right to claim the debt at a discount.

The BIC made unsuccessful attempts to call the owner of Stroytorgservis, and also sent a letter to this company and BelVEB Bank asking whether the right to claim the debt had been transferred to Dyminskyy's company, yet we had not received any reply by the time this investigation was published. 

Therefore, the footprint of Dyminskyy's business interests after fleeing Ukraine extends to at least five countries: Greece, Serbia, Cyprus, Latvia and Belarus. All this time, he remained a defendant in a criminal case. In Ukraine, the pre-trial investigation against Dyminskyy has been suspended "due to the suspect being placed on the international wanted list", the Prosecutor General's Office told the Ukrainian portal NGL.media.