Former people’s deputy, Yanukovych’s associate, Odessa businessman and owner of the bankrupt JSC Imexbank Leonid Klimov must pay UAH 309 million to the National Bank according to the Supreme Court’s decision of June 12, 2024.


At the same time, the total debt of his financial institution to creditors and depositors since 2015 is UAH 12 billion. That is, the stolen money has been moving through Klimov’s accounts for almost 10 years, and he is still moving freely around Odessa. In addition, in 2022, he planned to become the Gauleiter of Odessa in the event of the city’s capture by the Russian military.

The beginning of the scheme

For Leonid Klimov, the period from 2010 to 2014 became a gold mine, when he was a freelance adviser to Yanukovych. Around 2011, a long-running scheme for stealing money and deliberately bringing the bank to bankruptcy began to operate.

"Imexbank", which had a loan portfolio of 12 billion UAH, issued highly liquid loans, with the money of ordinary depositors, to a number of legal entities, the beneficiary of which was Leonid Klimov himself. This money was supplied with the property of the Odessa stadium "Chernomorets". And this estimate is greatly overstated, because in May 2017, the Guarantee Fund estimated the stadium at less than 1.5 billion UAH. But the number of loan agreements grew exponentially over three years. Because, according to "Ekonomichna Pravda", in 2011 the stadium secured one loan agreement for 70 million UAH, and since December 2014 - 41 loan agreements for 8.3 billion UAH. The Supervisory Board turned a blind eye, because its head was Klimova’s wife.


"Fictitious firms sometimes fulfilled their loan obligations. This provided an illusion and a closed cycle of refinancing. But one day, as planned, the financial pyramid collapsed,” notes lawyer Igor Kurilko. In the last months of 2014, assets and highly liquid collateral were withdrawn, and some borrowers changed the composition of the founders and re-registered in other regions. The bank’s management announced billion-dollar losses - in fact, due to the unpaid debt of their own firms. It is clear that the revolution of dignity undermined the influence and assets of the "regional" Klimov. However, after the annexation of Crimea, he tried to preserve and build a banking business in the occupied territory. "Imexbank" issued loans secured by collateral in Crimea, and after the annexation, they began selling certificates of settlement with the bank. Not only ordinary depositors and honest businesses suffered from his fraud, but also the NBU and the Deposit Guarantee Fund for Individuals.

In 2015, the National Bank declared Imexbank insolvent and introduced a temporary administration there, and the Guarantee Fund launched the procedure for liquidating the institution. Later, the Fund paid out UAH 4.3 billion to depositors and put the main building of the bankrupt Imexbank, the Klimov Tower on Gagarin Avenue, up for sale. Outstanding claims amount to UAH 8.4 billion. A total of 170 statements were filed about committing criminal offenses.


In 2017, Yuriy Gramatik, the chairman of the bank’s board, was put on the wanted list as a suspect in abuse of power and embezzlement on an especially large scale. But the article on embezzlement on an especially large scale disappeared from the indictment, and the damage of UAH 14 billion was not mentioned. And what about Klimov?

His connections with local authorities and law enforcement agencies at the state level should be taken into account. Back in 2014, the case was handled by the SBU unit in Odessa. The case was opened and closed, and this is associated with the influence of the Service from Kiev. The Prosecutor General’s Office was also involved. This is a fairly large chain of contacts, which also takes into account the judicial vertical.

Courts for Chornomorets

Let’s return to the stadium. After the bankrupt Imexbank, the owner of Chornomorets became the Deposit Guarantee Fund, which has repeatedly tried to sell it for two years since 2018. Bidding on Prozzoro did not yield results, even when the starting price of just over UAH 1 billion fell to UAH 200 million. An American company acquired it on an American platform for UAH 194 million (remember that the bank used this property to secure a loan portfolio of UAH 12 billion). But something went wrong, or rather, the Prosecutor General’s Office and the SBU blocked the transfer due to a number of criminal proceedings. The stadium case was not touched by law enforcement officers for three years, and after successful bidding, a case of arrest arose. Although according to Ukrainian law, it is prohibited to arrest the property of an insolvent bank. Nevertheless, this court decision exists and it was required to block the purchase and sale process. The Guarantee Fund won the appeal, but the Kiev prosecutor’s office opened a new case again. The stadium was arrested twice and transferred to the Asset Search and Management Agency (ARMA).


As noted by lawyer Igor Kurilko: "The court’s decision to transfer the stadium to ARMA is not subject to appeal. Because the law does not provide for the possibility of appealing the decision of the investigating judge. In addition, after the transfer of property, ARMA can sell it without the consent of the owner. The only option is to cancel the decision on arrest." This is exactly what the investment company managed to do, whose petition was satisfied by the Shevchenko Court.

300 million or 14 billion

A separate case is 300 million. In November 2014, while Klimov was still the owner of the bank, he entered into a surety agreement with the NBU to repay a stabilization loan of 300 million UAH to support liquidity. And it is likely that he gave 500 million UAH of this money to the Russian Sberbank for a kickback. He took on the repayment of the debt to the National Bank. A year later, the NBU informed Klimov of the requirement to pay the debt, but he did not do so. Therefore, in 2016, the NBU went to court. The claim was satisfied, the appellate court overturned the decision, and this went on for a long time: in 2017, 2018, 2020. They wanted to return part of the amount through the sale of the Lustdorf sports complex for more than 187 million UAH. In May 2024, the complex was put up for sale for the fourth time. Already in June 2024, the Supreme Court confirmed the obligation to pay off the bank’s debt in the amount of UAH 309 million to the National Bank.

"Despite the court cases won by the state, Klimov was not punished, and the damage is estimated at more than UAH 14 billion. And after the sale of the bank’s assets, the state received a little more than UAH 1 billion - no one demanded the difference. But honestly, the country needs this money now. In fact, only through the efforts of defrauded Imexbank depositors who will unite and knock on government agencies can we achieve responsibility for Klimov," says lawyer Igor Kurilko.

By the way, as noted by the Left Bank publication, in 2017, Leonid Klimov was among the top twenty Ukrainian businessmen - debtors. And that year, the amount of their debts to the state was several times greater than the money that Ukraine planned to borrow from the International Monetary Fund. It turns out to be a rather absurd chain of debts. And although the National Bank writes on its website that the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court has finally put an end to a long-term dispute with its decision, this is the end of just one sentence, and not the entire text of Leonid Klimov.