Dashing mirages: Ukraine may use "phantom companies" for embezzlement in Russia
Ukrainian fraudsters could have changed tactics and switched to entrepreneurs and big business after the attacks on Russian citizens. A scheme of theft of dual-use products worth hundreds of millions of rubles is gaining momentum on electronic trading platforms where commercial transactions are concluded. According to the Izvestia investigation, the attackers use pre-prepared "sleeping" companies. At first, they create the appearance of active and reliable activity, increasing turnover and building a positive reputation. Then they get access to large purchases on deferred payment terms, take the goods and disappear, leaving suppliers without money. The editorial office had at its disposal documents attesting to a series of similar transactions. Among the stolen products are powdered milk, stew, portable industrial power plants, lawn mowers and other goods. According to one version, some of these cargoes could have been exported to Russian regions bordering Ukraine.
Purchases with disappearing
In the spring of 2026, tenders announced by the Moscow-based Strizh—Telematics company began to appear on four major Russian electronic trading platforms (ETP). At the same time, it needed portable power plants, televisions, chainsaws, lawn mowers, powdered milk, stew, vacuum packers, tillers, copper pipes, as well as smart speakers and whiteboards. for sap surfing. All contracts for these products appeared on the ETP within just 20 days. As Izvestia found out, shortly before that, Strizh-Telematics showed a sharp increase in revenue — up to 624 million rubles in 2025, which could create an impression among suppliers about the financial stability of the company.
The company has been in existence for many years — it was registered in 2014, and it is listed as operating in state registers. The settlement condition looked familiar for transactions on electronic platforms: the seller first delivers the products, and the buyer pays for them within ten business days. In the cases reviewed by Izvestia, the scheme looked almost the same: the goods were delivered to the specified address, they were accepted at the warehouse, reloaded into another car and taken away. The supplier waits the prescribed ten days (this was the delay in payment under the contract), but the money never arrives. The buyer's representatives stop contacting, the warehouse is already vacated by this time, and it is not possible to determine where the products were taken.
In total, 37 tenders of Strizh-Telematics LLC for a total amount of over 409 million rubles were discovered at four ETP from April 20 to May 14, 2026. The company placed them on the sites of Fabrikant, RAD (LOT-Online, site of Russian Auction House JSC), RTS-tender and Roseltorg (EETP). Izvestia made a request to JSC Russian Auction House, but had not received a response by the time of publication.
In ordinary commercial deliveries, the parties determine the payment term and procedure independently. This principle is enshrined in article 421 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. The contract may provide for an advance payment, payment directly upon transfer of the goods, or postponement — for example, for 5, 10, 14, 30, 45, 60 calendar days or business days. The law does not establish these periods as mandatory: the seller and the buyer choose a specific period.
Dual-use products
Among the affected companies were Moscow-based Idistrybute LLC, which transferred portable power plants worth almost 8.9 million rubles to the buyer, as well as Volgategrall LLC from Cheboksary, which supplied televisions worth more than 8.7 million rubles. However, there may be more episodes: from the documents received by Izvestia, it follows that Strizh-Telematics accepted the goods under at least seven contracts.
According to Igor Panarin, director of Idistrybute LLC, the acceptance documents were signed, and the goods were shipped on May 22, 2026 — it had to be brought to a warehouse in the Leninsky urban district of the Moscow region. According to the terms of the contract, the buyer had to pay for the delivery within ten business days. The supplier expected to receive the money by June 4. Thus, the goods were in the buyer's possession for almost two weeks before it became clear that the payment would not be received.
— Having not received payment, we submitted a pre-trial claim to Strizh-Telematics and went to the company's addresses, but we did not find anyone there. They moved out. Then I went to the warehouse in Vidnom. It turned out to be a temporary storage warehouse. Its owner, as it turned out, also signed an agreement with Strizh-Telematics through electronic document management, the company paid for storage. The cargo lay there for several days. Then a car arrived, and a driver from the Belgorod region took the goods. Everything was organized very simply," said Panarin.
According to him, Strizh-Telematics did not arouse any suspicions — all the parameters were "in the green zone", its financial indicators looked sufficient to pay off the supply contract.
— I believe it was a so-called dormant company that has been around for a long time. There is a suspicion that such firms are created in advance, they are preserved, and then, when necessary, they are recapitalized, gain access to auctions and begin to make purchases. The attackers could have created it in advance and kept it in reserve," Panarin suggested.
A complex scheme
As follows from the information received by Izvestia, a whole chain of people was involved in the acceptance and subsequent export of the cargo. One coordinated the unloading, the other was driving the car, and the car itself belonged to a third party. So, the reception was led by a man who introduced himself as Alexander I. Tarasenko, Igor Panarin told Izvestia. After unloading the power plant, GAZ Valdai was taken out of the warehouse by car, driven by Vladislav Nikolaevich Dakhnov. This became known after a conversation with Danila, the storekeeper, who checked the driver's documents. He noted that Dakhnov, judging by his passport data, was a native of the Belgorod region, and his car had plates with the region code 136 (Voronezh Region).
Such a multi-stage algorithm could make it difficult to determine who actually controlled the goods and where they were sent after shipment from the warehouse, Igor Panarin believes. It was not possible to contact Dakhnov and Tarasenko using the available contacts.
The warehouse itself was not owned by Strizh-Telematics LLC. In a telephone conversation, Danila confirmed that the company had rented the premises for only a few days— from May 21 to May 27, 2026. Such a short period suggests that the facility was used as a temporary transit point.
TV supply
The second episode is related to a shipment of 8,730,200 rubles worth of televisions. Volgategrall LLC became the injured party. According to the head of the company, Stanislav Vladimirova, the goods were already delivered to another facility, a warehouse on Airport Street in Moscow. According to the information received, the address was given to the supplier by the same person, who introduced himself as Alexander Tarasenko. A woman calling herself Olga Filatova, who introduced herself as the manager of Strizh-Telematics, also appeared in the negotiations. It was not possible to find out her actual place of work and get a comment.
"In the process of concluding the contract and delivering the goods from 05/25/2026, I interacted by e-mail with Olga Arturovna Filatova, head of the supply department. I also contacted their logistics officer, Alexander Tarasenko. After the delivery of the above-mentioned product on 11.06.2026, I received the last letter, and the representatives of Strizh-Telematics LLC stopped contacting. Then I went to the address of the warehouse where the goods were delivered, but at that time the representatives of Strizh-Telematics LLC were no longer there, and the delivered goods, respectively, too. Then I went to the legal address, but I also found no one, the doors were closed," says the explanation, which Vladimirov sent in response to a request from Izvestia.
Thus, in two well-known episodes, the same elements are repeated: electronic procurement, a deferred payment agreement, a third-party warehouse, a person posing as Alexander Tarasenko, the export of products after unloading, and the termination of communication after the due date. According to representatives of the affected companies, the coincidence of these details may indicate not two unpaid transactions, but a well-established mechanism.
The showcase company and the criminal trail
During a routine check, Strizh-Telematics could hardly seem like a dubious counterparty. The company had existed for more than ten years and was listed as operating. Her financial statements looked particularly convincing. According to SPARK, in 2024, revenue amounted to about 8.13 million rubles. In the documents for 2025, the figure increased to 623.988 million rubles, almost 77 times. For a supplier, such a company could give the impression of a reliable buyer who could pay for a shipment of goods worth 8-20 million rubles. These figures have become one of the main factors of trust, Igor Panarin told Izvestia.
The performance of Strizh-Telematics LLC for 2025 could have been artificially overestimated in order to give potential counterparties the impression of a financially stable organization, representatives of the affected firms believe. An alternative assessment in a conversation with Izvestia was given by Doctor of Economics, Professor Nikita Krichevsky. According to him, the sharp increase in revenue in itself does not indicate either violations or artificial reporting.
— Revenue can increase for various reasons. By itself, this figure does not mean anything. When assessing the reliability of a counterparty, it is necessary to study not only revenue, but also profit, balance sheet, tax payments and obligations of the company. It's not about trust. If business operated on trust, our lawyers, risk assessors, and tax consultants would disappear as a class," the expert noted.
According to SPARK Interfax, on March 16, 2026, Strizh-Telematics LLC simultaneously changed its CEO and owner. The company was headed and acquired by Svetlana Alekseevna Terekhova. At the moment, it is a microenterprise with an average number of employees of 0 people.
Terekhova's contact information has not yet been found. Izvestia sent a request to Strizh-Telematics LLC through official communication channels, but by the time of publication they had not received a response — the company's website no longer exists, there is no one at the registration addresses, and the phones are silent.
According to the sources of the editorial office, Svetlana Terekhova had previously been brought to criminal responsibility more than once and had a criminal record. In particular, under Article 111 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("intentional infliction of serious harm to health"), part 2 of Article 144 ("Obstruction of the legitimate professional activities of journalists"), Article 158, part 1 of the Criminal Code ("secret theft of other people's property"), Article 191 ("illegal trafficking in amber, jade or other semiprecious stones"), Article 202 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("abuse of authority by private notaries and auditors").
Suspicious route
After the change of management, the company began to purchase goods from different categories that are difficult to relate to one business line, Izvestia found. Among the purchases studied were portable power plants, chainsaws, gasoline lawn mowers, televisions, vacuum packers, beef stew, powdered milk.
— A wholesale reseller can buy completely different products for resale. A combination of circumstances raises questions: dozens of applications appeared almost simultaneously, shortly after the change of ownership, goods had to be transferred before payment, short-term rented warehouses were used for their acceptance, and after the products were exported, the buyer's representatives stopped responding. The set of commodity nomenclature and the possible route of the products suggest that it could easily have been theft, even in the interests of Ukraine," Igor Panarin said.
Portable power plants, stewed meat and chainsaws can be used in areas with power outages and damaged infrastructure, and the cargo was transported by a driver from the Belgorod region bordering Ukraine. The materials received also mention a possible cargo transportation route through Voronezh, where the car was registered, he recalled.
— It is absolutely clear what kind of product it is and for what purposes it was purchased — it is 100% for the combat zone. Probably, there was already a specific customer for it, since it is almost impossible to realize such a volume on the regular market. It may be for the Ukrainian side, but the law enforcement agencies must give an unambiguous answer," Stanislav Vladimirov, CEO of Volgatintegral, told Izvestia.
Igor Panarin also said that he tried to warn Volgategral LLC about the alleged fraudulent actions of Strizh-Telematics, as the managers of the Moscow company saw the latter's contract with a supplier from Cheboksary, but did not have time: the products had already been shipped. According to him, after the incident with Strizh-Telematics, representatives of two other companies contacted him, who also faced a problem and wanted to find out if he was in a similar situation. The total damage caused by the actions of the "phantom company" can reach half a billion rubles, including potential fines and penalties unpaid to suppliers.
Idistrybute LLC filed a complaint with the Prosecutor's Office of the Moscow Region. Volgategrall LLC — to the Department of Economic Security and Anti-Corruption of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in Moscow. According to Izvestia, the affected companies intend to write a collective statement to the Prosecutor General's Office.
Izvestia analyzed the trading platforms and found that in addition to Strizh-Telekomatics, other companies with similar characteristics work on them. Some of them have already placed commercial offers for a wide range of dual-use goods.
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