President Zelenskyy's ally Naum Barulia has Russian citizenship and owns business property in occupied Crimea, according to an
investigation by Skhemy. His assets were re-registered under Russian law after the annexation, and he continued to buy real estate
there.
The founder and general producer of the League of Laughter and a longtime
ally of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, TV producer Naum Barulia has
the citizenship of the aggressor country and has a business in Russian-occupied Crimea. This is the evidence of
according to an investigation by journalists of the Schemes project, UNN reports .
Details
Judging by the
journalists' investigation, Naum Barulia has Russian citizenship,
which he has never renounced during the 10 years of war. He also has a current
Russian taxpayer identification number.
Journalists of the
"Radio Liberty" from the "Schemes" project found documents confirming that
the famous producer Barulya traveled to Crimea after the occupation of the peninsula by Russians until
2019 inclusive, using a Russian passport.
The "schemes" also
also managed to establish that the Russian migration service issued Naum Barulia Russian passport in
April 2009, when he was 49 years old. At that time, Barula lived in Moscow and
working as the general director of Alexander Maslyakov's AMIK company, which
which organizes KVN.
The presence of
of the Russian passport was also confirmed by journalists using official
registers of the Russian Federation and leaks from state databases of different periods.
Real estate in Crimea
Accordingly
the investigation also revealed that Naum Barulia re-registered all his property and business in Crimea
all his property and business in Crimea under the laws of the occupiers. Moreover, after the
the annexation of the peninsula by the Russians, Barulia purchased new real estate there, totaling
totaling 60 million rubles.
In particular, in the city of Sudak, Zelenskyy's longtime creative associate has three
apartments with a total area of 312 square meters. According to Skhemy, this property
Barul voluntarily re-registered this property under Russian law in January 2016.
in January 2016. However, he did not do it personally. He issued a notarized power of attorney and gave
his lawyer the authority to carry out all the necessary procedures for the registration of
property issues on the Russian-occupied peninsula.
Earning money in Ukraine by producing
TV projects, Naum Barulia continued to buy new property there as a citizen of Russia after the annexation of the peninsula.
new property there as a Russian citizen, according to the laws of the occupiers. In 2017, he became
the owner of a 7-hectare land plot, also in Sudak. A year later, in the same place
he acquired another 6 acres and a seven-story building with an area of more than 2,000
square meters.
Business in Crimea
In addition to the property, journalists also found an operating business of a Ukrainian
producer who still pays taxes to the occupiers' treasury.
As of December 2023, the founder of the League of Laughter remains the sole
owner of the company "Profile-N", which was re-registered in Crimea after the annexation under the
under the laws of the aggressor country.
"Profile-N" is a catering establishment on the central embankment of Sudak called
called "Prokhlada". The cafe-restaurant is decorated in Soviet style. Until recently,
namely until 2019, he owned this business together with his daughter, Iryna
Borzova, who is now a member of the Verkhovna Rada from the Servant of the People party. It was
after being elected to the parliament, Iryna Borzova transferred her share of the business in Crimea
to her father.
However, Schemes managed to obtain a document indicating that at the end of 2014, after the occupation of Crimea
after the occupation of Crimea and the illegal referendum, Naum Barulia and his
and his daughter re-registered their company Profil-N in accordance with Russian law.
According to the Russian register Spark, the revenue of the aforementioned cafe in Sudak
over the past five years amounted to more than 15 million rubles, of which half a million
of which went to the occupiers' treasury as taxes.
Barula position .
Journalists of "Schemes" tried to ask producer Naum Barulia and his daughter Iryna Borzova directly about
and his daughter Iryna Borzova about their assets in the occupied Crimea and the presence of a Russian
passport. However, Barulia denied that he had registered property and companies in Crimea under the
the laws of the occupiers. And he refused to talk about having a Russian passport at all.
he refused to talk about his Russian passport at all.
Barulya also noted that after the occupation of the peninsula by Russians, he lost all
his assets in Crimea.
In fact, there is nothing, I have lost everything. Everything I've been working on for 25 years
every single day.
Baruli's daughter and current MP Iryna Borzova refused to comment on her father's business in Sudak
business in Sudak and his Russian citizenship refused to comment.
Optional
Naum Barulia is a Ukrainian television producer and longtime creative associate of
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with whom they co-founded the show "League of Laughter" and produced
a number of well-known Ukrainian television series. Currently, Barulia is making sitcoms on the
on the topic of war. Last year, one of his projects applied for state funding.
funding.