Former KGB officer becomes the focus of controversy surrounding a sale of shares in the mobile phone giant to Russia's Alfa Group.
nd-largest mobile phone operator, Kyivstar.
Kyryl Kulikov, the head Interpol’s office in Ukraine, announced on Aug. 29 that authorities in Austria and Germany had “frozen” some $170 million deposited into bank accounts controlled by Russian intelligence agent-turned-entrepreneur Vladimir Kishenin.
Kishenin reportedly received the money from Russia’s Alfa Group in exchange for control of Storm Ltd., a company linked to former President Leonid Kuchma and his family. Storm co-founded Kyivstar, called “KuchmaStar” by some, which today serves 10 million customers.
Storm during 2004 and 2005 sold its shares in Kyivstar, which reported net profits of $219 million in 2004 and, along with rival provider Ukrainian Mobile Communications, holds a virtual monopoly on Ukraine’s mobile phone services market.
Kishenin, head of the Social Democratic Party of Russia, said in an interview appearing on Aug. 11 in the Moscow-based Vedomosti newspaper that he brokered the sale between Storm and Alfa, but denied the transaction involved Kuchma or members of his family.
Documents leaked to Ukrainian media in August by “sources close to Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs,” suggest otherwise, however. According to an investigative article appearing on Aug. 5 in Grani Plus, a Kyiv-based E-zine, Alfa paid some $250 million to Storm for its 43 percent stake in the company.
Lyudmila Kuchma and her daughter, Olena Franchuk, have both been linked to the Storm and Kyivstar over the years, as has Kuchma’s Russian brother-in-law, Yuri Tumanov.
Kishenin, meanwhile, is no stranger to Ukrainian intrigues. A military school graduate from St. Petersburg, he served in Lviv as a career KGB officer during the 1980s before being tapped to head the USSR’s electronic intelligence department in Moscow from 1989-1991.
Kishenin’s role in brokering the sale emerged as Alfa-Telecom on Aug. 23 challenged a shareholder’s agreement with Norway’s Telenor, Kyivstar’s majority shareholder with a 56-percent stake. Alfa is also challenging a separate agreement that gives Telenor the right to nominate three vice-presidents of Kyivstar, including the company’s chief financial officer.
Kyiv’s Economic Court is scheduled to hear arguments in the case on Sept. 26.
Reuters on Aug. 30 quoted a report from the Moscow investment bank United Financial Group (UFG) as saying that the litigation is simply a tactical move in a larger contest between Alfa and Telenor.
The squabble, according to the brief, involves Alfa’s plans to merge Russia’s number-two mobile operator, Vimpelcom, with Kyivstar.
A Vimpelcom-Kyivstar merger, said the UFG report, would leave Telenor with a minority stake in the merged entity, an outcome the Norwegians are trying to avoid.
