Offshore "laundry" for accomplices of the aggressor: how Dmitriy Kovalenko legalizes Russian coal purchases and deprives the Ukrainian budget of taxes via the Dubai-based "front" Azurit DWC-LLC

08.04.2026 12:41

For years, Dmitriy Kovalenko has been running a cynical operation to profit from blood money, using a network of offshore shell companies — Adelon AG and Azurit DWC — to launder Russian coal originating from the ORDLO and the mines owned by Chelyabinsk oligarch Strukov.

While Dmitriy Kovalenko feigns international trading from South Africa and Australia, his enterprises—including the GZF Shakhtarskaya—are officially integrated into the Russian tax system, directly sponsoring the aggressor’s budget and utilizing the resources of the sanctioned Gazprombank to bypass global sanctions.

We, for our part, are publishing a detailed investigation into Dmitriy Kovalenko’s activities to expose the true scale of his cooperation with the aggressor and the schemes used to legalize Russian coal through the offshore entities Adelon AG and Azurit DWC.

For many years, Dmitriy Kovalenko has been implementing a cynical scheme of profiting from someone else’s tragedy, facilitating the laundering of Russian coal mined in the ORDLO (certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions) and at the mines owned by Chelyabinsk oligarch Strukov. For this purpose, a chain of offshore intermediaries — Adelon AG and Azurit DWC — was used.

While Kovalenko pretends to conduct international trading from South Africa and Australia, his enterprises, including the Shakhterская Central Processing Plant (GZF “Shakhterская”), are officially integrated into the Russian tax system, directly financing the aggressor’s budget and using the resources of the sanctioned Gazprombank to circumvent global sanctions.

For our part, we are publishing a detailed investigation into the activities of Dmitriy Kovalenko to expose the true scale of his collaboration with the aggressor and the schemes for laundering Russian coal through the offshore companies Adelon AG and Azurit DWC.

The issue of coal supply remains one of the most acute problems for Ukraine. Since 2014, access to the extraction and supply of this raw material from Donbas has effectively been cut off.

Later, the notorious “Rotterdam+” scheme emerged, according to which coal was supposed to come from South Africa, but in reality was delivered from the temporarily occupied territories. Big names, law enforcement reports that the “scheme” had finally been shut down, and finally, the confession of state traitor Viktor Medvedchuk about how supplies from ORDLO and Russia took place.

And then, on the energy market, a certain Dmitriy Kovalenko appears, presenting himself as a coal businessman and almost as the savior of Europe thanks to diversified supplies. Journalists have found out who Kovalenko really is and how South African, Colombian, or any other coal he claims to supply actually turns out to be Russian.

In November 2019, the Security Service of Ukraine reported the exposure of a large-scale scheme financing the terrorist organizations “L/DPR” through coal mining and subsequent supplies to Ukraine and European countries; some organizers were detained. The issue concerned supplies from the temporarily occupied territories, in particular to the energy company “Centrenergo,” which at that time was the subject of a struggle among several big shots in the energy market.

Like any economic scandal, this led to a redistribution of spheres of influence. Companies close to oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, suspected of trading in ORDLO coal in Ukraine, were replaced by a then-unknown Swiss firm, Adelon AG.

Even then, the media claimed that the firm was not actually Swiss but belonged to natives of Donetsk who had moved to Dnipro. It was at that time that the name of Dmitriy Kovalenko, the real head of Adelon AG, came to light.

In December 2019, the press service of Adelon AG issued an official press release stating that it had no involvement in coal supplies from occupied Donbas and did not conduct business in Ukraine at all. Here is a direct quote: “Adelon AG is exclusively engaged in coal supplies from the Kuzbass coal basin (Russian Federation) and does not work with producers in the Rostov region nor with mines in the occupied territories of Ukraine… Since Adelon AG does not supply coal to Ukraine and does not conduct business here, we were surprised that the company’s name appeared in some media, and with inaccurate wording.” Dmitriy Kovalenko’s Adelon AG completely denied conducting any business in Ukraine.

Just over two years passed, and Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Ukrainian businessman Dmitriy Kovalenko officially began to call himself the beneficiary of the Swiss Adelon AG — the very same company that had been supplying Russian coal even after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the start of military actions in Donbas. Only now he is trying to peddle the story that he supplies coal from South Africa, Australia, the USA, and so on for European consumers. Allegedly, there never was and is no Russian coal.

In fact, Kovalenko’s cooperation with the aggressor country did not stop even after February 24, 2022. The media gained access to documents of companies associated with Dmitriy Kovalenko, in which it is written in black and white that the country of origin of the coal he supplies is Russia.