A "businesswoman" from the oil moneybag team

Buro investigators have discovered that Mikalai Varabei, Lukashenko's oil money bag, and his companies may be involved in the construction of a port in Murmansk.

It was recently announced that Belarusian investors are planning to construct a port in the Murmansk Region. The agreement was signed by Andrei Chibis, Governor of the Murmansk Region, and Andrei Bunakov, General Director of the Russian company Morskoi Terminal Vorota Arktiki. The company is owned by a Belarusian named Nelly Maliarova (1%) and the Belarusian company Logistic Energy (99%). So who are these unannounced investors?

The journalists of Reform.news were able to identify Andrei Bunakov as the former general director of Belshina, who had been arrested a year earlier and who was defended by the representatives of the current government – Raman Halouchanka, Natallia Kachanava and Piotr Parkhomchyk.

We decided to find out who the mysterious Nelly Maliarova is. And this is what we found.

Logistic Energy, which has been solely owned by Nelly Maliarova since November 2022, is registered at the same address as another well-known logistics company, Belkaztrans. This is one of Mikalai Varabei's assets. The company was registered in his name until December 2020. Belkaztrans is now owned by Siarhei Sakovich, who has been its director since 2019. Mikalai Varabei is under US and EU sanctions as Aleksandr Lukashenko's "oil moneybag".

Thanks to CyberPartisans, we were able to find out that Nelly Maliarova was employed by Belkaztrans in 2021 and is originally from Navapolatsk. Her husband, Aliaksandr Maliarou, was employed by Interservice, another company co-owned by Mikalai Varabei. We tried to contact Nelly Maliarova through her parents. They said they'd pass on our request for an interview to the daughter, but she hasn't got back to us. Nelly, we look forward to hearing from you!

Logistic Energy director Marat Maletski declined to comment. But we were able to find out that his full namesake has twice been an observer at elections in Navapolatsk – the 2019 parliamentary elections and the 2020 presidential elections. Furthermore, his namesake was the head of the production department at the Polimir plant in Navapolatsk.

In 2023, Logistic Energy generated a net profit of 35 million Belarusian roubles and distributed 16 million roubles in dividends. In 2022, the company was ranked among the top 10 logistics companies in Belarus.

The planned construction of the Belarus port in the Murmansk region is scheduled for completion by 2028. The facility is designed to handle 25-30 million tons of cargo per year, including potash fertilizers and oil products. The amount of investment is not disclosed.