The assets of the state enterprise “Giprokoks”, which is engaged in the design of coke-chemical industry enterprises, have been appropriated by a Slovak company owned by a friend and partner of Kostyantyn Karamanyts, a Kryvyi Rih businessman close to the ruling elite. These assets include patents, trademarks, engineering staff, and more.
This is detailed in a new investigation by Bihus.Info.
The state enterprise “State Institute for the Design of Coke-Chemical Industry Enterprises” (abbreviated as “GIPROKOKS”) specializes in the design of coke ovens and related equipment for the coke-chemical industry. It is here that all coke ovens in Ukraine (Avdiivka Coke Plant, Azovstal, ArcelorMittal, etc.) were designed, as well as every fifth coke battery in the world. “GIPROKOKS” has over 50 projects in 26 countries and more than 500 patents, copyright certificates, and inventions.
In November 2024, the state enterprise entered into a collaboration with a Slovak company of the same name, GIPROKOKS EUROPE S.R.O., and together they established LLC JV “GIPROKOKS”. According to documents available to the editorial team, the state enterprise transferred its most valuable assets—patents, trademarks, and trade signs—to this joint venture. Despite this, the state’s share in the new project amounted to only 40%. Even this share may soon exist only on paper, as the state enterprise is currently being “technically” bankrupted in court due to a debt to a company directly linked to the owner of the Slovak GIPROKOKS.
As of today, the Slovak partner’s website has already announced that it is not the joint venture, but the Slovak private company itself, that now manages the intellectual property rights, projects, engineering team, and the entire historical portfolio of “GIPROKOKS”.
All of this happened in violation of the law: creating any organizations based on state property is only permitted if the state receives 50% or more of the corporate rights. Additionally, doubts have arisen regarding the signatures on the documents. On behalf of the state enterprise, the charter of the joint venture bears the signature not of the current head of the enterprise, but of a certain Yuriy Masyuk from Kryvyi Rih. This individual has multiple convictions for drug-related offenses, theft, and robbery. His latest sentence of 4.5 years in prison was issued in September of this year—and just a few weeks later, he allegedly signed the new charter of the enterprise.
The manager of “GIPROKOKS” on behalf of the state is the State Property Fund of Ukraine (SPFU). In response to journalists’ inquiries, the SPFU stated that it did not grant permission to establish the joint venture and did not authorize any Masyuk to sign anything. Furthermore, the SPFU clarified that the actions of the state “GIPROKOKS” contradict its own charter: the enterprise could not establish anything new, could only acquire a share in an existing entity—and only with the approval of the Fund, which did not provide such approval. At the same time, over the year that has passed since these events, no lawsuits by the SPFU to recover state assets have been found.
The Slovak company GIPROKOKS EUROPE S.R.O. was registered on the same day as the joint venture it became part of. The company’s current director is a Ukrainian woman, Vita Kravchenko, who is the wife of Serhiy Kravchenko, the head and chief engineer of the state enterprise “GIPROKOKS”. The Kravchenkos refused to communicate with journalists.
At the same time, the owner of GIPROKOKS EUROPE S.R.O. is listed as Dmytro Snizhko from Kryvyi Rih. For many years, his family has been friends and business partners with the well-known local entrepreneur Kostyantyn Karamanyts. Karamanyts’ main sphere of activity is ore mining (LLC “Rudomine”), and he is also known as the owner of FC “Kryvbas”, a brand he revived in 2020 at the initiative of Volodymyr Zelenskyy and with the participation of People’s Deputy from “Servant of the People” Yuriy Koryavchenkov (also known as “Yuzik” from Kvartal 95). According to Karamanyts himself, he studied at the same school and institute as the future President, but apart from football, they have not interacted much in recent years. At the same time, Karamanyts is referred to online as “the President’s miner”—which can be seen as a hint that after Zelenskyy’s victory in the presidential elections, Karamanyts’ business significantly expanded, including in the field of mining.
According to business registry data, after 2019, Karamanyts’ business group indeed scaled up very quickly and successfully: the turnover of “Rudomine” increased dozens of times, he won an auction to lease a large mining and processing plant, his subsidiary acquired the Kryvyi Rih Iron Ore Mining and Processing Plant for oxidized ores, plans are in place to build a wind power plant there, another related company seized a quarry in Kryvyi Rih through a court ruling without an auction, and the family portfolio was supplemented with two companies holding mining licenses in Zhytomyr region. Ultimately, after the start of the full-scale invasion, Karamanyts was one of the few businessmen invited to a meeting with the President to discuss infrastructure restoration under wartime conditions. Following this, another of his companies received a state contract worth a quarter of a billion hryvnias to protect critical infrastructure facilities, specifically for the protection of the Trypillia Thermal Power Plant.
Interestingly, it was Snizhko and Karamanyts’ associates who drove the state enterprise “GIPROKOKS” into bankruptcy. A year ago, the state enterprise borrowed 11 million hryvnias from LLC “Tradetorg Production”, failed to repay it on time, and the company filed a lawsuit demanding that the state enterprise be declared bankrupt. At that time, the owner of the company was a manager of Snizhko’s, and the lawyer representing it in court—Hlib Kravtsov—is a long-time family and business lawyer for Snizhko and Karamanyts, with his primary place of work being Karamanyts’ LLC “Rudomine”.
It was not possible to contact Snizhko. Karamanyts claims that he is hearing about “GIPROKOKS” for the first time and has not been in contact with Snizhko recently.
