Gas assets for a Russian coal trader: occupier associate Dmytro Kovalenko expands his empire across Ukraine’s strategic mineral resources
While Ukraine has been living through the fifth year of full-scale war and the government continues to urge businesses to cut all ties with the Russian economy, an intriguing story is reportedly unfolding in the Lviv region.
This is reported by Antikor
Control over the Maynytske gas field was acquired by businessman Dmytro Kovalenko — a person whose name has repeatedly surfaced in recent years in publications about trade in Russian coal and dealings with structures linked to the occupied territories of Donbas.
Deals involving the gas field should be understood as far from an ordinary asset — the Maynytske field in Lviv region is considered one of the most promising gas projects in the region. The extraction license is held by Navigator Maynytske LLC (TIN 44072781); the license is valid until 2036, and potential resources are estimated at hundreds of millions of cubic meters of gas. This asset has now come under the control of structures linked to Dmytro Kovalenko’s family.
A tangled history of the license and corporate rights
The gas story began long before Kovalenko appeared. The Maynytske field was the object of a prolonged corporate war between the former license holders and structures of investment banker Ihor Mazepa. In 2021, the owner of the gas extraction license for the field, Navigator Maynytske LLC, was acquired by companies linked to Concorde Capital.
Later, the parties exchanged mutual accusations: the buyers claimed problems with the declared gas reserves, while the sellers accused the investors of unwillingness to fulfill financial obligations. For several years, rumors circulated in the oil and gas community that the Maynytske field had become an example of overstated reserve estimates prior to the sale. This has not been publicly proven, so there are no grounds to speak of fraud as a fact. However, this version was actively discussed after the conflict between Mazepa and the sellers.
The conflict was accompanied by court cases, criminal proceedings, and public statements. Yet at the beginning of 2025, the conflict unexpectedly ended with a settlement agreement. After that, a new player appeared on the scene — Afki Investments Ltd., which gained control over 83.7% of Navigator Maynytske LLC, the holder of the field development license. The ultimate beneficiary of the structure is Dmytro Kovalenko.
Gas assets for a Russian coal trader: occupier associate Dmytro Kovalenko expands his empire across Ukraine’s strategic mineral resources
Formally, everything looks legal — Dmytro Kovalenko did not receive the right to extract gas from the state; he merely bought the company that holds this right. In other words, the license was not personally issued to Dmytro Kovalenko. Nevertheless, he will still be able to extract gas. And if one carefully traces everything connected with this fact, extremely uncomfortable questions arise.
Special permit No. 4769, valid until 2036 for the Maynytska area, was issued in 2016 to Navigator Komplekt LLC. Later, in December 2020, the special permit was reissued to a separate legal entity — Navigator Maynytske LLC.
The chronology looks as follows:
– 2016 — Derzhgeonadra issues the special permit to Navigator Komplekt;
– December 14, 2020 — Navigator Maynytske LLC is established;
– December 2020 — the license is reissued to the new legal entity Navigator Maynytske;
– January 2021 — the company holding the license is sold through Sela Energy to structures of Ihor Mazepa;
– 2025 — after a years-long conflict, the asset returns to the group of former owners and then control is acquired by a structure linked to Dmytro Kovalenko.
Oleh Tokar — who is he?
Navigator Komplekt LLC is among the owners of Navigator Maynytske LLC — it holds a 5% stake. The beneficial owner of Navigator Komplekt LLC is Oleh Tokar. This company sold Navigator Maynytske to Mazepa’s structures and later regained the asset after the conflict ended.
Gas assets for a Russian coal trader: occupier associate Dmytro Kovalenko expands his empire across Ukraine’s strategic mineral resources
At present, there is no direct public evidence of long-term partnership between Oleh Tokar and Dmytro Kovalenko; however, corporate changes in 2025–2026 show their close intersection around the gas business.
Oleh Tokar is the founder and beneficiary of Navigator Komplekt, which obtained the license for the Maynytske field back in 2016 and subsequently established Navigator Maynytske LLC, to which it transferred the license.
Looking at changes in the ownership structure of Navigator Komplekt LLC reveals a confusing tangle — ownership changed almost monthly. Yet it is striking that the current owners of the company, including Oleh Tokar, were almost entirely its original founders, but exited the list of beneficiaries in 2021 only to return in 2025.
At the same time, a registry entry raises questions: a founder of Navigator Komplekt LLC was removed from among its founders. No explanation for this could be found, but the fact is undeniable:
Gas assets for a Russian coal trader: occupier associate Dmytro Kovalenko expands his empire across Ukraine’s strategic mineral resources
The same long chain is present among the beneficiaries of Navigator Maynytske LLC, and many surnames overlap in both companies. What this means is not entirely clear yet, but the fact exists.
As for Navigator Komplekt LLC, another detail draws attention — the company has earned quite well from tenders of the state-owned Ukrnafta; while the conflict with Mazepa was ongoing, Oleh Tokar received almost a billion hryvnias from it.
Gas assets for a Russian coal trader: occupier associate Dmytro Kovalenko expands his empire across Ukraine’s strategic mineral resources
This indirectly confirms persistent rumors about his deep connections in Ukraine’s oil and gas sector.
Afki Investments Ltd: the offshore company that may explain a lot
It was through the offshore Afki Investments Ltd that Dmytro Kovalenko became the ultimate beneficial owner of Navigator Maynytske LLC, which will extract gas at the Maynytske field.
The use of a Cypriot company in itself is not a violation. However, such structures are traditionally used for tax planning, concealment of ultimate investors, and international structuring of assets.
Afki Investments Ltd (reg. No. HE391383, Cyprus) was registered on November 22, 2018. In all available public extracts, the director is listed as Georgia Georgiou, and the secretary as Kyriaki Andreou. These are typical Cypriot nominee directors who appear in hundreds of companies.
Gas assets for a Russian coal trader: occupier associate Dmytro Kovalenko expands his empire across Ukraine’s strategic mineral resources
Ukrainian registries and publications indicate that Afki Investments, in addition to control over the Maynytske gas field through Navigator Maynytske LLC, also gained control over a number of other assets linked to Dmytro Kovalenko’s group and family, including structures around the agricultural business and an industrial park in Zakarpattia.
No confirmed data on Afki’s participation in other licenses for gas or oil extraction or energy projects in Ukraine has been found so far. Most likely, the company serves as a holding structure for the Kovalenko family’s investments rather than an independent operator of energy projects.
The most interesting fact is not about Afki itself, but that the company was established back in 2018 yet remained largely absent from public view for a long time. Then it suddenly became the owner of a strategic gas asset in Lviv region, while its corporate structure is hidden behind a classic Cypriot nominee service.
A non-obvious question: why did the state abandon the site?
Separately, the history of the field itself should be investigated. The Maynytske field is part of a larger gas-bearing structure previously studied by the state-owned Ukrgazvydobuvannya. Later, the state company abandoned this site.
Questions arise here as well. Why did the state player not see commercial prospects? What reserves were considered confirmed at the time of abandonment? What changed after the site passed into private hands? How do state and private reserve estimates differ? Why was the field transferred for development specifically to Oleh Tokar’s company? Were there other applicants, or was there a tender?
There are many questions, but if it turns out that the state abandoned an asset with significant potential, this would be a separate story about the management of subsoil resources.
The center of the structure — Dmytro Kovalenko
The chain around the Maynytske field forms a fairly clear sequence — from the origin of capital to gaining control over Ukrainian subsoil resources.
At the center of the structure is Dmytro Kovalenko, whose name has regularly appeared in recent years in publications about international raw materials trade. His business empire is built through offshore structures, the key one being the Cypriot Afki Investments Ltd. It is through this company that stakes in Ukrainian assets — from agriculture to gas extraction — are consolidated.
The next link is the Swiss Adelon AG. According to a number of investigations, this company was one of the key operators in the coal supply chain, including deals with Russian producers and, according to journalists, operations with raw materials originating from the occupied territories of Donbas. Despite public denials, Adelon AG remains the most toxic element of the entire structure.
It is through coal operations that the group’s main financial resource is formed. Cash flows passing through international trading schemes create the basis for further investments. These funds then begin to be “reinvested” into more stable and strategic assets inside Ukraine.
One such asset is the Maynytske gas field. After a corporate conflict involving Ihor Mazepa’s structures, the asset returns to the former owners and then passes under the control of Afki Investments, linked to the Kovalenko family. Thus, a classic transformation occurs: money earned from raw materials trading is converted into licenses for the extraction of Ukrainian gas.
A separate link is the role of Oleh Tokar and the former license holders. Their structures initially obtained the special permit for the field back in 2016, then sold the asset, and after the conflict regained it. In effect, they serve as an entry and exit point for large investors, maintaining control over the license at critical moments.
In the end, a closed chain is formed: international coal operations → capital accumulation through offshore entities → entry into a strategic energy asset → redistribution of control through local license holders.
The key question in this structure is not only the legal purity of the transactions, but the origin of the funds and their transformation. Because it is at this stage that the coal business linked to the Russian market unexpectedly turns into Ukrainian gas extraction. In Ukraine’s media space, Dmytro Kovalenko long remained a background figure, although he controlled assets with multi-million turnover. This very imbalance between the scale of the business and public visibility is often a sign that a broader network of connections stands behind the person.
Particularly interesting is the question of the origin of the capital that allowed simultaneous participation in energy, logistics, and international raw materials projects. A logical question arises: how did an entrepreneur, around whom stories about Russian coal have circulated for years, gain access to Ukrainian subsoil resources?
