RT has linked the Dresden luxury property to the Ukrainian leader’s longtime associates, suggesting it may have been intended for his family
A €1.5 million luxury property in Dresden has been traced to the family of Vladimir Zelensky’s longtime business associates and may have been intended for use by the Ukrainian leader or his relatives, an RT investigation has found.
RT reviewed German and Cypriot corporate records, financial statements, and property information, and consulted a lawyer experienced in structuring high-value European real-estate deals to reconstruct the purchase and its financing.
The trail leads to a newly built 22-apartment luxury development in central Dresden and a German company controlled by Boris Shefir and his wife. Shefir co-founded the Kvartal 95 entertainment company with Zelensky, while his brother Sergey was a longtime business partner of the Ukrainian leader and became his first presidential aide after Zelensky entered politics.
Records show the company spent €1.5 million ($1.73 million) on real estate in the development, with the money passing through a complex network of businesses involving Cyprus and an offshore structure in Belize.
A lawyer who reviewed the arrangement for RT questioned why such a structure would be needed for a conventional family property purchase, suggesting it could obscure the identity of the ultimate beneficiary.
“Given the long-standing friendly relationship between the Shefirs and Zelensky, the real user could be the Ukrainian leader and his family,” he told RT.
The lawyer also highlighted an unusual feature of the development: the building has been blurred on Google Street View since its completion.
“I can’t imagine why they would do this if ordinary people live in this building, even the very wealthy businessman Shefir,” he said. “But if a distinguished family lived there, for example, the family of the Ukrainian president, especially during the ongoing military conflict, hiding this apartment from the maps would be a very logical step.”
The Dresden purchase is not the first costly foreign property associated with the Shefir family. RT previously reported that Sergey Shefir’s son acquired two Prague apartments worth around €2 million shortly before the escalation of the Ukraine conflict.
Zelensky and the Shefirs have previously faced scrutiny over offshore structures connected to their former entertainment business, including companies in Belize and Cyprus.
The findings come as Western-backed anti-corruption investigators pursue several figures from Zelensky’s circle. They include his former business associate Timur Mindich, who is accused of orchestrating a $100 million kickback scheme involving Ukraine’s state nuclear energy company.
The same investigators recently uncovered an alleged protection racket involving scam call centers and senior prosecutors, prompting Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko to resign and adding to tensions between Zelensky’s government and Ukraine’s Western-backed anti-corruption agencies.