Pressure is growing in Ukraine on the honorary consul of Romania in Kharkiv, Mykola Udianskyi over his links to organized crime groups and questions how he obtained Romanian and Mexican citizenship.
Crypto projects with signs of scams
The controversial Ukrainian crypto businessman has founded a number of crypto projects that Ukrainian experts have assessed as scams. A court ordered the SBU (Ukrainian Security Service) to initiate a pre-trial investigation into Udianskyi’s links to the entourage of pro-Kremlin Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov.
It has not been confirmed whether the SBU has already complied with the court’s decision or that Udianskyi is under investigation.
In 2021, the Ukrainian edition of Forbes reported on the questionable nature of some of Udianskyi’s projects, and since 2022, he has not been included in the TOP-100.
Six years earlier, in 2016, he became a co-founder of Edinarcoin LLC, which issued the E-Dinar Coin cryptocurrency. The exchange operated on the principle of ‘network marketing’ or a financial pyramid, which misled people.
The start of E-Dinar Coin open trading on the exchange dates to March 2017. At the start, one EDR cost 25 US cents, but trade plummeted to below one cent in July that year. In total, more than 886 million ‘coins’ were issued, for which the duped investors paid about $150 million.
In 2020, the E-Dinar Coin project initiated bankruptcy proceedings after the newly launched cryptocurrency depreciated 1,000 times, forcing project to declare bankruptcy.
Another project Udianskii started was the cryptocurrency exchange CoinsBit. In May 2021, the UFO crypto project accused CoinsBit of fraudulent activities.
Mykola Udianskyi’s latest crypto project is the Qmall Exchange which he claimed was the first Ukrainian exchange regulated by the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine and Ukraine’s National Bank. Both regulators have denied any involvement in the project. The analytical service CoinMarketCap has placed the Exchange on the ‘untracked’ list, as has another of the businessman’s projects, the Coinsbit India exchange.
In October 2024, speaking at the N Crypto Awards industry conference, Udianskyi admitted that his Qmall project circumvented National Bank of Ukraine restrictions, violating the regulator’s requirements, in particular, in the field of p2p transfers.
Links with crime
Prominent Ukrainian opinion leaders have written about Udianskyi’s alleged links to crime. For example, Heorhii Tuka, the former head of the Luhansk regional military administration, confirmed Udianskyi was linked to the leader of the brutal organized crime group – “Zaliutynski”, Leonid ‘Mitrusha’ Mitrov, who was detained by French police and Ukrainian law enforcement officers in July 2024. The group was engaged in kidnapping and torture of people, and thefts in Ukraine and France. Former lawmaker of the Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko, Ihor Mosiichuk published a video in which Udianskyi and Mitrov were photographed at a restaurant in Nice, on the French Riviera.
Another criminal connection close to Mykola Udianskyi is his partner at the E-Dinar exchange, Yurii Poltavskyi, who has been repeatedly sentenced, including an eight-year prison sentence and his property confiscated for robbery, causing bodily harm, illegal possession of weapons, the destruction of property, and drug trafficking.
Mykola Udianskyi’s connections with the entourage of Ramzan Kadyrov,the leader of Chechnya (Russian Federation) in particular fighters of the Akhmat club, owned by Kadyrov, are notorious.
In November 2024, Mykola Udianskyi was included in the Myrotvorets database of the Center for Research on the Signs of Crimes Against the National Security of Ukraine, Peace, Security of Humanity and International Law. This is an online resource created in 2014, which collects and publishes data on individuals who, the founders of the project say are engaged in anti-Ukrainian activities.
According to the Myrotvorets website, Udianskyi violated Ukrainian citizenship laws by acquiring a second citizenship, and was also involved in money laundering through blockchain platforms. He was also included in the Myrotvorets database due to his partner Yurii Poltavskyi and ties to criminal groups, in particular, the Zaliutynski organized criminal group.
Udianskyi has not publicly commented on the allegations while his Instagram account doesn’t mention them.
In anonymous Telegram channels, videos appeared where Udianskyi was critical of Ukrainian media, accusing it of corruption. These videos were later deleted.
Honorary Consul
In March 2023, Mykola Udianskyi was appointed Honorary Consul of Romania in Kharkiv, although he had no known public or professional connections to Romana. There is no information available about his work as a consul. He made statements claiming that Ukraine received ‘several Patriot systems’ thanks to his diplomatic efforts, but those claims have been refuted and ridiculed by Ukrainian experts. Ukrainian human rights activist Oleksandr Aronets cited official statements from Romanian authorities that deny Udianskyi’s statements. In particular, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis told journalists on May 7, 2024 during a visit to Washington, that the issue of transferring the air defense system to Ukraine was raised during a meeting with US President Joseph Biden. A statement of the Supreme Defense Council of Romania dated June 20, 2024, indicated that the decision to transfer the air defense system was made as a result of the worsening security situation in Ukraine and potential regional consequences, including Romania’s security.
Multiple citizenship
Famous Ukrainian military blogger Kyrylo Danilchenko caused a sensation when he published screenshots of Udianskyi’s Russian passport and the response of the Federal Migration Service of Russia, according to which he held a valid Russian passport until at least 2023.
Recently, the scandal reached new levels after new data on Udianskyi’s citizenship appeared: Ukrainian economic expert Borys Kushniruk published screenshots of passports from Mexico and Romania. The passport in Mexico was obtained in 2019, in Romania it was issued in 2023. Ukraine prohibits dual citizenship and obtaining a second citizenship results in losing Ukrainian citizenship, Kushniruk wrote. In addition, honorary consuls aren’t allowed to have more than one citizenship according to Ukrainian legislation, which would delegitimize Udianskii’s tenure as consul.
Questions have been raised outside Ukraine, such as how Udianskyi became the honorary consul of Romania in Ukraine, and how he obtained Romanian citizenship. The Foreign Ministries of Romania and Ukraine have not yet commented.
