Russian oil refineries have been burning for months. Most of those strikes come from a single Ukrainian company, Fire Point. Leaked transcripts published on 29 April allege that the company is run from outside by Tymur Mindich—a sanctioned fugitive in Israel, a friend of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and a central figure in Ukraine’s biggest corruption case.
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That puts Ukraine between a rock and a hard place. Sanction Mindich, and Fire Point loses its $760 million Emirati buyer, and possibly its engineers and production schedule. Don’t sanction him, and €90 billion in newly approved EU support tied to anti-corruption performance is at risk, as is FBI cooperation tracing his money. A mansion near Kyiv may belong to Mindich. He may also have chosen Ukraine’s ambassador to the USA.
“We are choosing between very bad and absolutely terrible.”
This is the situation Ukrainian entrepreneur Valerii Pekar called zugzwang on Facebook—the chess position in which every move worsens your own. “We are choosing between very bad and absolutely terrible,” he wrote.
The leak and its timing
On 29 April, Ukrainska Pravda journalist Mykhailo Tkach read aloud what he said were transcripts of conversations between Mindich, former first presidential aide Serhii Shefir, and then-defense minister Rustem Umerov—now secretary of the National Security and Defense Council.
On 1 May, opposition MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak (Holos party) released more recordings. The original audio has not been published. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) has neither confirmed nor denied authenticity. Mindich has filed a defamation suit against Zheleznyak. The timing matters because the EU formally approved its €90 billion two-year support loan on 23 April, six days before Tkach’s broadcast.
Demanding perfect ethics from anti-corruption journalism amounts to telling surgeons their stitches are uneven while the patient bleeds out.
The publication itself drew immediate criticism. Ihor Semyvolos, director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, called Tkach’s publication a performance rather than a fight against corruption, warning that unverified materials in public circulation can be weaponized.
Kyiv Independent editor-in-chief Olha Rudenko countered that demanding perfect ethics from anti-corruption journalism amounts to telling surgeons their stitches are uneven while the patient bleeds out.
What’s in the tapes
In Tkach’s reading, Mindich—a sanctioned businessman with no government role—directs Umerov to summon Andrii Pyshnyi, governor of the National Bank.
The participants discuss replacing the cabinet, the defense ministry, and the ambassador to the USA. One candidate floated: then-energy minister Herman Halushchenko, now in pretrial detention on money laundering charges.
They show a sanctioned private citizen directing the defense minister and the central bank.
A separate strand discusses 120 million hryvnia ($2.9 million) in bail for former deputy prime minister Oleksii Chernyshov, paid in installments by people Mindich names.
A third strand discusses a real estate cooperative called Dynastia—four mansions in Kozyn allegedly belonging to Mindich, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andrii Yermak, Chernyshov, and someone the speakers call Vova, the diminutive of Volodymyr. All four mansions were arrested by court order last fall.
If the recordings are authentic, they show a sanctioned private citizen directing the defense minister and the central bank, and weighing in on ambassador appointments.
Fire Point’s books are contested
Fire Point manufactures the FP-1 attack drone, the Flamingo cruise missile, and Ukraine’s emerging line of ballistic missiles. By the General Staff’s count, it produces more than half of the weapons used in Ukraine’s long-range strikes on Russia—the strikes that have driven Russian fuel rationing and disrupted refining capacity since last summer.
In the transcripts, Mindich complains to Umerov that Fire Point is being underfunded, citing 311 billion hryvnia ($7.4 billion) in receipts. Co-owner Denys Shtilerman asked NABU to confirm or refute the materials, calling the publication “another information attack.”
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If Shtilerman is right, the transcripts are a smear.
The figure, he said, was inflated by a factor of ten—actual 2025 revenue was 29.3 billion hryvnia ($700 million). Mindich, he noted, is not and never was a Fire Point owner or beneficiary.
If Shtilerman is right, the transcripts are a smear designed to wreck a $760 million UAE deal days before it closes. If he isn’t, Ukraine’s biggest deep-strike producer was being managed from outside by a sanctioned individual, in violation of Ukrainian law.
The choices in front of Ukraine
The Public Anti-Corruption Council at the Defense Ministry has recommended partial nationalization of Fire Point. The argument is straightforward—change the beneficial owner; the only credible new owner, given Mindich’s sanctioned status, is the state.
“Nationalization will simply kill this company,” Andrii Kobolyev wrote on Facebook. The former Naftogaz CEO argued that state management would drive Fire Point’s engineers out within days—either through bureaucratic friction or through prosecution for off-budget decisions made under wartime urgency. He proposed a sale to a different private owner.
Fire Point is currently negotiating to sell 30% of itself to the UAE state defense conglomerate EDGE Group.
Anatoliy Amelin, of the Ukrainian Institute for the Future, asked who benefits from the timing of the leak. Fire Point is currently negotiating to sell 30% of itself to the UAE state defense conglomerate EDGE Group for $760 million—the largest defense deal in Ukraine since the Kryvorizhstal privatization in 2005.
A nationalization fight kills the deal. Russia gains either way. Nationalize Fire Point, and production likely falls. Keep it private with Mindich’s shadow on it, and Western support freezes.
The international stakes
Russia killed a Fire Point employee in his Vyshhorod apartment on 30 November 2025—a targeted residential strike signaling Moscow is hunting the people behind Ukraine’s deep strikes in their homes. The Flamingo assembly line was hit and relocated earlier this year, Zelenskyy disclosed in February.
Brussels finalized the €90 billion ($105 billion) Ukraine Support Loan on 23 April—a new two-year package on top of the €50 billion Ukraine Facility. Both make disbursements conditional on adherence to the rule of law, including the fight against corruption.
Because Mindich is sanctioned, he cannot legally receive proceeds from the EDGE Group deal.
The FBI is coordinating with NABU on the Mindich case. Because Mindich is sanctioned, he cannot legally receive proceeds from the EDGE Group deal. If he is a Fire Point beneficiary, the deal is a sanctions problem before it is a diplomatic one. If he is not, someone is using contested transcripts to wreck a major Western-Gulf transaction days before close.
Phase 1 of Mindichgate—the Energoatom kickback case at Ukraine’s state nuclear operator—took down two ministers, a chief of staff, and forced parliament to restore NABU’s independence after July’s attempted crackdown. Phase 2 has so far produced a defamation suit, contested transcripts, and a choice Ukraine cannot avoid much longer.
