Former Zelensky business partner accused of masterminding a massive scheme, and what he allegedly did is staggering

Tymur Mindich, who used to be in business with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, is now accused of running a $100 million theft scheme that involved Ukraine’s state nuclear energy company. The 46-year-old has left the country after anti-corruption officials released their findings from a 15-month investigation. Two top government ministers have quit their jobs because of the scandal.

Mindich used to co-own Zelensky’s production company Kvartal 95, which was named after the comedy group that made Zelensky famous before he became president. When Zelensky won the presidency in 2019, he gave his share of the company to his partners. But the two stayed close friends. Zelensky used Mindich’s armored car during his 2019 campaign and even celebrated his birthday at Mindich’s apartment in January 2021. They live in the same building.

Investigators say he used his connections to control a group of people who put pressure on contractors working with Energoatom. These contractors were told to pay kickbacks of up to 15% if they wanted to do business without problems, as per NY Post. The case is based on 1,000 hours of phone recordings that reportedly show Mindich had control over Herman Haluschenko, who was Ukraine’s energy minister from 2021 to 2025. Haluschenko quit this week after the investigation went public.

All of this went down during wartime

Anti-corruption activists in Ukraine say Mindich could only get this powerful because of his friendship with Zelensky. Tetiana Shevchuk from Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Action Center said, “What we were hearing only as rumors now has some evidence. For a long time we have heard that Tymur Mindich is a shadow controller of the energy sector.”

After Zelensky became president in 2019, Mindich’s political connections got stronger. He worked closely with Ukrainian billionaire Ihor Kolomoysky, who supported Zelensky’s presidential campaign. Zelensky later stopped working with Kolomoysky, and in 2023, Kolomoysky was arrested on fraud and money laundering charges. Companies that used to be connected to Kolomoysky started saying Mindich was now their real owner.

Mindich got involved in more and more businesses, including farming companies, SENSE Bank, and state energy companies. Shevchuk pointed out that the timing makes everything worse. She said Mindich “would have never been in politics, never been in a position of power or business without his connection to Zelenskyy, and this magnitude is worse because it’s happening during war time, and it is related to energy infrastructure at a time when Ukrainians don’t have electricity in their homes.”

Ukraine’s anti-corruption agency is also looking into whether Mindich had dealings with Fire Point, Ukraine’s biggest drone maker. The company makes long-range drones that can hit targets inside Russia. Investigators want to know if Mindich is the real owner of the company, but Fire Point says that’s not true. 

Any court case against Mindich will probably happen without him being there since he left the country. The investigation doesn’t say Zelensky himself did anything wrong, and the president has supported the work of anti-corruption agencies and put sanctions on Mindich.