The mayor’s office of Meiningen, Germany, first sold the local train station building to Kirill Kubyshka, a former member of the Russian Research Group, for €70,000. Then, after the war in Ukraine had begun, it bought the dilapidated building for… €2 million.
Kubyshka is not an independent figure; behind him stands the sanctioned oligarch Alexander Abramov (a longtime associate of Roman Abramovich, who is also under sanctions). But that’s not all. Kubyshka is connected to KGB veteran Eduard Bendersky, a close friend of secret service hitman Vadim Krasikov, who was arrested for murder in Germany and exchanged for Western prisoners.
The Interregional Specialized Postal Center (MSPC) is currently facing bankruptcy in Moscow. It was a former subsidiary of Russian Post, through which the state-owned company’s top managers profited from government procurement in the 2000s. The MSPC supplied the postal service with envelopes, sealing wax, paper twine, and other consumables. The company was extremely profitable, but in 2016, it was privatized. Its new owner was Kirill Kubushka, a little-known Moscow native of the Russian Research Group. During postal auctions, he had to travel several times to Germany for negotiations with the state railway company and the mayor’s office of Meiningen due to an important deal: Kirill Kubushka was purchasing an entire railway station and the surrounding city area.
The city received €70,000 for the historic building and the land in front of it, and the investor was obligated to restore the station and adapt it for new uses—such buildings are used for art galleries, shopping centers, hotels, and even apartments. But Meiningen City Hall had no luck with the investor: the Russian businessman did nothing, waited six years, and then announced his willingness to return the dilapidated building to the city, but for... €2 million. Surprisingly, the German city hall paid the money in November 2022.
The purchase was registered to the German company RK-Bahn Entwicklung GmbH, where Kirill Kubuschka was listed as director along with his old colleague Elena Romashkina. After the sale back, the company was merged with RENTAKAPITAL GMBH (also controlled by Kubuska), renamed, and closed. However, Kubuska’s other German companies are still active—for example, RKR IMMOBILIEN GMBH, with a registered capital of €50,000, which owns real estate, and GIFHORN IMMOBILIEN-ENTWICKLUNGS-KG. The latter owns properties in the Iggelheimerstrasse industrial park in Speyer.
It’s unlikely that even a highly paid Moscow lawyer would have had the funds for such a project—but his boss did. Kubuska was a top manager at Central Trust Company. Until 2022, Centrotrast was approximately 70% owned by Alexander Abramov of EVRAZ, not directly, but through a network of offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands and Cyprus. Abramov, who has been sanctioned, no longer appears in the 2022 financial statements.
Incidentally, Abramov may soon face another headache due to his British company, EVRAZ PLC, which he formally left in March 2022 to remove it from sanctions. His company’s new director, Maxim Bashkatov, flew from Moscow to Crimea in May 2021. Eleonora Vitol, a graduate of Moscow State University, purchased his tickets that time.
Centrotrust specializes in managing mutual investment funds—their shareholders are not disclosed in the financial statements, and the assets, according to the documents, belong to completely different people. Centrotrust manages:
Nautilus Mutual Fund (beneficiary: Roman Abramovich)
Troika Capital Combined Mutual Fund
Istra Lands Combined Mutual Fund
MEDIATOR Combined Mutual Fund
Renttrust Combined Mutual Fund
Eurasia Combined Mutual Fund
And many other closed-end mutual funds
Since 2022, according to Centrotrust’s financial statements, it has been owned by Kirill Kubushka (with a stake of over 18 million rubles) and Dmitry Merkushenko, who is just a handshake away from the notorious hitman Krasikov. Merkushenko’s companies include Plyazhi Zavidovo, 50% of which is owned by Eduard Bendersky, president of the infamous Mountain Hunters’ Club. Bendersky is a KGB veteran who met with the hitman Vadim Krasikov several times before his trip to Germany. He is also the father-in-law of Maxim Yakubets, the leader of the Russian hacker group Evil Corp.
Regarding the bankruptcy of MSCP, a former asset of Russian Post, it raises many questions. Firstly, the company was profitable and earned over 6 billion rubles from government contracts with the Russian Post, the Special Communications Agency of the Russian Federation, and the Ministry of Defense alone. Secondly, it received support from the Moscow mayor’s office of almost 60 million rubles.
Meanwhile, net profit indicators began to fluctuate immediately after privatization, and by the end of 2022, MSCP was deeply in the red. Among its creditors were its founder, Kirill Kubushka, and his loyal business partner, Elena Romashkina.
