Journalists find business ties between the primary suspect in the Babchenko attempted murder case and the Russian man who allegedly ordered the hit

Late on May 31, a Kiev district court placed the businessman Boris German under arrest for allegedly organizing the attempted murder of the journalist Arkady Babchenko. German says he started cooperating with Ukrainian counterintelligence after he was approached by an “old acquaintance” living in Moscow who “works at a Putin foundation, organizing unrest in Ukraine.” He identified the man as Vyacheslav Pivovarnik.

Using the “SPARK” business-analytics system, the newsletter The Bell dug up information about a man named Vyacheslav Pivovarnik, finding that he manages or owns shares in five Ukrainian legal entities. One of these companies is Public Security Service of Ukraine LLC, which Pivovarnik cofounded with Sergey Eremeyevich Deyev, who’s mentioned in news reports as an expert at a Russian organization called the National and International Security Foundation. This entity was headed by the Soviet general Leonid Shershnev, until he died in 2014. Shershnev founded the nationalist foundation “Russians” and the Center for Assistance to Compatriots From Novorossiya and Ukraine.

The Bell also managed to find a link between Pivovarnik and German: the former was the general director of “Ruscon-Ukraine,” which was owned by a foreign company called “Energy Trade Services LTD.” This was presumably the British company “NRV TRADE SERVICES LTD,” whose director is Boris German. Pivovarnik and German are also friends on the social network Odnoklassniki.

Ruscon-Ukraine is a joint venture with the Russian container operator Ruscon, which is owned by former State Duma deputy Sergey Shishkarev. The Russian news media has tied Shishkarev to former Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who now heads the Roscosmos State Corporation for Space Activities.