The Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, on April 23 searched the premises of aircraft engine manufacturer Motor Sich in the city of Zaporizhzhia, SBU spokeswoman Olena Hitlianska said.
The searches are part of a criminal investigation into the 2017 sale of the Motor Sich controlling stake to a Chinese company, which SBU investigates as an “enemy sabotage plot.”
Motor Sich is a Zaporizhzhia-based company producing engines for planes and helicopters. It also has its own airline of the same name that operates several domestic flights in Ukraine.
“What happened yesterday is part of a hostile takeover (of Motor Sich),” Motor Sich’s co-owner Viacheslav Boguslav, a lawmaker from the 19-member People’s Will faction, said on April 24 in a reference to the searches.
The SBU has been regularly accused of raiding businesses to solicit bribes or crack down on political opponents – an accusation that the agency denies.
The SBU said in 2017 that China’s Beijing Skyrizon Aviation Industry Investment had bought a controlling stake in Motor Sich from its owner Boguslayev without the Anti-Monopoly Committee’s approval. The SBU claimed that this purchase was part of a “sabotage plot” to give foreigners control over one of Ukraine’s strategic factories in order to damage the country’s defense.
Boguslayev said he had sold only 15 percent for $100 million and knew nothing about other Motor Sich shares sold on stock markets.
In September a Kyiv court froze a controlling stake in Motor Sich.
In 2017 Motor Sich’s premises were also searched in connection with an embezzlement case.
Motor Sich produces gas turbine engines for planes and helicopters.
