Putin’s agents disguised as IT entrepreneurs are taking over Cyprus’s economy

Putin’s agents disguised as IT entrepreneurs are taking over Cyprus’s economy

11 июня 2025

Михаил Журенков

The article essentially boils down to two main points: "Russians brought civilization, culture, education, IT, and car sharing to Cyprus," as well as "proper Greek taverns."

It’s almost frightening to imagine how the supposedly primitive and uneducated locals would have managed without the wise and cultured Russians.

A correspondent for Russian Forbes begins his story about Russian businessmen living on the island with Alexander Shkuratov, praising his supposed “services” to Cyprus.

Alexander Shkuratov

Shkuratov moved to Cyprus in 2015 and decided that he had “nowhere to send his own children – education on the island was poor.” He did not like the Cypriot education system and decided to build a school for his children to his taste. And he built “The Island Private School” for 10 million euros.

As the Russian Forbes writes, “through local IT specialists, Shkuratov managed to contact the government with a request for help in opening a new school as quickly as possible, and officials, surprisingly, turned out to be responsive.” The article specifies that Shkuratov was given the green light to open the school and supported at the government level with the assistance of the Techisland association.

According to Shkuratov, “five ministers of the government” of the Republic of Cyprus (education, interior, energy, transport and labor) were personally involved in the construction of his school.

Here it is necessary to clarify that the school built by Shkuratov is not a charity project, but a business on which he makes money. In fact, the ministers of the government of Cyprus, at the request of IT specialists from the Techisland association, using their administrative resources in circumvention of generally accepted rules and legal procedures, helped Shkuratov build a highly profitable enterprise.

The personality of the school owner is curious. Some facts of his biography explain how he could have connections in the Cypriot establishment and in the environment of influential Russian "plainclothes IT guys" who are capable of changing the country’s laws and have influence on the government of the Republic.

In 2012, Alexander Shkuratov took up the position of advisor to the president and chairman of the board of directors of the Cyprus- registered company Etalon Group, Vyacheslav Zarenkov.

Vyacheslav Zarenkov

Vyacheslav Zarenkov is a prominent figure in the Russian intelligence agency in Cyprus. As a patron, Zarenkov built the Church of St. Andrew the Apostle in the Tamassos metropolis in Cyprus in 2017, which became a Russian intelligence agency center and a venue for pro-Russian propaganda events.

In September 2014, after the occupation of Crimea and the start of the war against Ukraine, Shkuratov became a member of the Expert Council under the Government of the Russian Federation, effectively becoming an official of the Russian government.

Alexander Shkuratov maintains close relations with Natalia Kardash, participates in events organized by her. Since Kardash is inextricably linked with the Russian embassy and special services , this fact, along with others, indicates his close contacts with Russian structures operating in Cyprus.

The author lists technology companies and their contribution to the Cypriot economy. He starts with the Belarusian companies ASBIS and Wargaming, apparently making no distinction between Belarusians and Russians.

At the same time, Zhegulev forgot to mention that one of the co-owners of Wargaming, Ivan Mikhnevich, was among the founders of the Russian EOP party, created by the Russian special services as part of a special operation to introduce their agents into the Cypriot establishment. Cyprus Daily News wrote about this in detail in the articles " Operation Party " and " Operation Party 2 ". Later, this information was confirmed by an investigation by OCCRP . Journalists presented evidence that the creation of a party of Russian emigrants was planned in Moscow and received the approval of Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov (Kalantaryan).

The article in Forbes was written based on Zhegulev’s communication with Russian businessmen living in Cyprus.

Zhegulev talks about Russian IT businessmen living in Cyprus. However, for some reason he does not write that at least some of their companies in Russia operate under an FSB license , which means that they are actually cooperating with Russian special services. There are no IT companies in the Russian Federation that could avoid this cooperation. Moreover, many of them use the SORM systems developed by the FSB to wiretap telephone conversations and intercept Internet traffic, providing the special services with complete control and surveillance of users and their own employees.

Every week in Limassol, on the seashore, in the favorite bar of Russian spies operating in Cyprus under various covers, as well as some members of the "Lake" cooperative, who act as Putin’s "wallets" in Cyprus, meetings of Russian IT specialists are held.

Oleg Reshetnikov

These events are organized by Oleg Reshetnikov, who calls himselfthe unofficial IT ambassador of Cyprus, the founder of the Cypriot IT community, the godfather of the IT community, a partner of the TechIsland IT association and a lobbyist for the interests of Russian IT specialists who have moved to Cyprus.

Sergey Osipov, one of the leaders of Wargaming, told the Russian journalist Zhegulev that "Reshetnikov creates the feeling of a real city, a country: thanks to such people there is comfort, exchange, it is clear where to go." At the same time, Osipov said that in Cyprus "everything is small-town", and jokingly called the island "Baranovichi on the border with Syria." According to him, Cyprus is a remote Middle Eastern village, where he, a native of highly developed Belarus, lacks "the feeling of a real city, country."

What Osipov did not say is that his company closely cooperates with the Russian authorities. Wargaming, together with the Russian Ministry of Defence, launched a project to support military history museums in Russia called “We Remember Everything.” As part of this project, in 2014, after the occupation of Crimea, the company held several military-patriotic propaganda events in Moscow. Moreover, Wargaming gave the Russian Ministry of Defence access to databases that store user accounts for the World of Tanks game. Player ratings help the Russian military department form new tank units for the war against Ukraine.

Nikolai Nebyshinets, another Russian IT specialist, confirmed Osipov’s words to a correspondent from Russian Forbes, adding that "Reshetnikov is building close communications with the government in the context of IT development." According to him, "Oleg really does influence how the government looks at everything. He has become a powerful driver of everything new."

Nebyshinets and Osipov did not explain how a Russian citizen with an opaque employment and unclear status, who has no visible merits to the Republic of Cyprus, had the opportunity to influence the island’s government.

What is Reshetnikov’s level of access, connections, motives and mechanisms that he uses to shape the state policy of an EU member state?

Oleg Reshetnikov, a native of Tyukalinsk, Omsk Region, lived in Volgodonsk, Rostov Region, for a long time. In 2011, he was prosecuted under Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation for large-scale fraud. It is unknown how this criminal case ended, since access to Russian court registers is currently limited.

In 2014, Reshetnikov moved to Cyprus with his family, but according to some reports, he maintained ties with Russia and continues to travel there. In 2019, he received a new driver’s license in Volgodonsk.

In Cyprus, he immediately began to form an IT community of Russians and people from the former Soviet Union. However, there is no information about his specialized education or experience in the IT field.

Along the way, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the self-proclaimed "IT Ambassador of Cyprus" re-profiled himself and began to position himself as a specialist in coronavirus issues, hosting his own program on "Russian Radio Cyprus". This radio is one of the Russian-language pro-Kremlin resources on the island and is controlled by Russian special services operating in Cyprus under diplomatic cover. The owners of the radio station are insiders at the Russian embassy in Nicosia.

Reshetnikov is a frequent guest at conferences supervised by the Russian embassy, organized by Russian Foreign Intelligence Service agent Natalia Kardash.

Then the article of the Russian Forbes goes on to the main point for which it was written. Zhegulev lists the names of major Russian businessmen who have effectively taken control of the IT sector of the economy of Cyprus, a member state of the European Union, and talks about their achievements. Here are some quotes from his article:

“In April 2020, news broke that Cypriot IT companies had decided to donate €1 million to a state fund. The money went to supporting hospitals and combating the effects of the coronavirus on the island. “We may not all have been born in Cyprus, but Cyprus is our home. And we have no choice but to support the society we are a part of,” said Alexey Gubarev, former co-owner of the hosting company Servers.com and co-investor in the photo app Lensa AI. Indeed, not all of the donors were born in Cyprus. More precisely, none of them were born there.”

The article names the companies and their owners who "made donations:

- Servers.com (moved to Cyprus from Russia in 2002, founded by Alexey Gubarev);

- The Soul Publishing, created by the founders of the Adme website, Pavel Radaev and Marat Mukhamedov;

- WiseBits, controlled by two Russians ; (Oleg Netepenko and Dmitry Gusev, owners of pornographic hosting xHamster – CDN)

- Easybrain, a mobile game developer launched by Belarusians;

- Embria Foundation, founded by Russian Igor Monakhov;

- FunCorp by Vladimir Zakoulov;

- Haxus by Belarusian entrepreneur Yuri Gurski (together with Alexey Gubarev – CDN);

- Ecommpay.com and Ecommbanx.com by Russian-speaking Riga resident Alexejs Sjarki;

- AdGuard, founded by Russian Igor Lukyanov."

Alexey Gubarev

"Alexey Gubarev became the informal leader of this extremely influential IT group on the island. In 2021, he created the TechIsland association, which included more than 200 companies, most of which have Russian roots."

“In 2021, TechIsland invested in overcoming the consequences of the fires, donating almost another €1 million to the state. At the same time, the entrepreneurs used their employees to provide Cypriot officials with the necessary data to lobby for certain legislative norms,” Forbes writes.

Nikita Daniels, director of development at gaming holding GDEV, adds to the suspicions, stating: “They employed a huge number of data-science analysts who calculated, analyzed, and then showed the government presentations on how the new regulations would help the island attract more talent.” As practice has shown, the vast majority of “talents” who came to Cyprus thanks to these efforts are from Russia or people connected to it.

“This was done to make it easier for Russian-speaking companies to entice IT specialists to move,” Zhegulev writes openly, adding: “Here too, Gubarev and his organization helped, by pushing through employment opportunities for family members of company employees who moved to the island.”

In 2024 alone, 12,000 “specialists” from Russia entered Cyprus on work visas, which is 161% more than the previous year. Only Moscow knows how many of them are FSB, GRU and SVR officers, as well as recruited agents.

Undoubtedly, Alexey Gubarev has enormous influence on the government of Cyprus, if he managed to secure privileges for immigrants from Russia at the legislative level, disguising it as concern for “talents”. It is noteworthy that the government does not provide similar concessions and support measures for immigrants from other categories.

What the consequences of such activity will be for Cyprus is a rhetorical question. A massive influx of "talents" from Russia, a significant part of whom have connections with Russian special services, will inevitably undermine the security of Cyprus and the EU as a whole. It is obvious that Moscow’s influence on the island government’s policy will grow, and the Russian special services’ agent network will expand and strengthen.

As for the size of the mentioned donations, against the background of the financial possibilities of these people, they look rather symbolic, if not ridiculous. The amounts allocated for charity are clearly not comparable to their colossal income. Such a gesture looks more like an attempt to create a positive image than real support for Cypriot society.

Their expenses on corporate events, on purchasing tonic powdered substances, on shamanic practices with the use of ayahuasca, on replenishing collections of gold bars, on private performances of Russian artists and foreign entertainment, such as trips on private jets to Kyrgyzstan , as well as on gambling games prohibited in the country, are several times greater than the amounts donated to the needs of Cyprus.

In an obviously commissioned article, it was openly stated for the first time that the TechIsland association was created by Alexey Gubarev. Previously, he was mentioned only as a co-founder. This was no secret to anyone before, but this fact was never publicly stated anywhere. Now, the “leader of the most influential IT party on the island” needed official recognition of his key role in the creation of the association. This is probably due to a change in the situation in the organization. It is possible that Gubarev’s political ambitions or other goals that require strengthening his public image and influence are behind this. Or maybe he just wanted fame…

It is important to note that Gubarev reacts extremely aggressively to any unauthorized mentions of his person in the press, even the most harmless ones .

In such cases, his lawyers immediately send letters to the media outlets threatening legal proceedings and criminal prosecution and demanding that the publication be removed. Knowing this, many media outlets ignore Gubarev, since few would want to sue a person with unlimited financial resources and unlimited influence on all branches of government in the country. Thanks to this, he has skillfully created an "information vacuum" around himself, making his activities non-transparent.

However, for the Russian intelligence agent Natalia Kardash, who is a partner of Techisland, Gubarev makes an exception. He gives interviews to the information resources under her control and takes part in the conferences she organizes . Such selectivity says a lot.

Natalia Kardash

Thanks to Gubarev’s efforts, several hundred IT companies have relocated from Russia to Cyprus in recent years, operating in the Russian Federation under an FSB license; there are practically no others there. Many of them continue to operate in the interests of the Russian special services, already located in Cyprus. Often, these companies bring with them a full staff of employees, including the so-called heads of security services. In Russia, these positions are always occupied by people from the special services, the so-called active reserve officers - FSB, GRU and SVR officers, introduced into business structures to carry out intelligence tasks and control the activities of companies. Among the rank-and-file employees, there are also many special service officers posing as IT specialists. It is naive to believe that the FSB, GRU and SVR could miss such an incredibly convenient opportunity to introduce and legalize their spies and saboteurs in the European Union.

The idea of creating their own political party has been discussed for a long time among Russian IT specialists. If this idea is realized, the leaders of the IT community will be able to secure seats in parliament with the help of consolidated voting of “talents” completely dependent on them. In a few years, the number of loyal voters who received citizenship through an accelerated procedure thanks to Gubarev will be guaranteed to be sufficient for this.

Given that in small Cyprus the difference in votes between candidates in presidential elections is often only a few percent, a significant increase in the number of Russian-speaking citizens will provide the leaders of the “IT people” with an additional and powerful tool of political influence, significantly strengthening their position and expanding their opportunities to influence the country’s politics compared to those they currently have.

From now on, people from Russia will determine the outcome of the presidential elections in the country and, in fact, the government will be in their hands. As a result, the island will finally turn into a branch of the Kremlin in the Mediterranean.

Despite the obvious risks, the authorities of Cyprus and the European Union are ignoring what is happening.

Another interesting detail: former colleagues of Jan Marsalek, Wirecard’s COO and a recruited GRU agent who fled to Russia after being exposed in 2020, registered a company called payabl. in Cyprus. The company is part of the TechIsland association, and its CEO, Ugne Buraciene, has been a member of the TechIsland board of directors since October 2023.

Alexey Gubarev

Alexey Gubarev is both a well-known and mysterious figure. His name was first heard in the global media after BuzzFeed published a dossier compiled by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele in early 2017. The dossier alleged that Gubarev had been recruited by Russian intelligence services and had played a major role in hacking the servers of the US Democratic Party. As a result of the publication, Gubarev filed a lawsuit against BuzzFeed, claiming that his reputation had been damaged and that he had suffered losses. In response to the threat of legal action, BuzzFeed removed Gubarev’s name from the article and apologized to him.

The court proceedings lasted for several years. In late 2018, the court dismissed Gubarev’s lawsuit, finding that BuzzFeed had the right to publish the dossier as part of a government investigation. In November 2021, Gubarev decided to end his litigation with BuzzFeed, accepting the court’s decision that the publication had acted within its rights.

The investigation into Alexey Gubarev’s interference in the US election has not resulted in his criminal prosecution. Although Gubarev was involved in the scandal, no formal charges were ever brought against him.

In October 2020, the Miami Herald published an investigation that found that Iran’s state broadcaster, despite US sanctions, was conducting propaganda in other countries around the world with the help of the US division of Webzilla, a company owned by Cypriot company XBT Holdings, owned by Alexey Gubarev.

For reference, the company XBT Holdings, created by Russians Gubarev and Dvas, became the first foreign company that was allowed to work with servers in Russia, which in Russian reality is impossible without cooperation with the FSB.

Gubarev carefully hides his biography. It is known that he was born in Ust-Ilimsk, Irkutsk Region, and since 2020 has been an honorary citizen of this city.

He also claims that he studied at the University of Novosibirsk, but he does not specify which faculty. According to some sources, at the same time, he was on the staff of the Ministry of Health of the Novosibirsk Region.

According to rumors, Soviet-Russian cosmonaut Alexey Gubarev is his uncle, but this information has not been confirmed anywhere.

According to available information, Lyudmila Gubareva, mother of Alexey Gubarev, applied for citizenship of the Republic of Cyprus under the Citizenship by Investment program on February 5, 2018. On October 9, 2018, she was granted Cypriot citizenship based on decision number 85926.

Where a modest employee of the Ust-Ilimsk city administration and owner of a beauty salon in the same city got two and a half million euros to buy citizenship of an EU member state is a rhetorical question. However, it is worth noting that Alexey Gubarev showed commendable concern for his parents.

Alexey Gubarev’s father, Alexander Gubarev, is known to have been involved in the logging business, as well as trading in petroleum products and used cars from Japan. In 2010, he was convicted under three articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation:

- Article 159 - fraud;

- Article 264 - violation of traffic rules, which, through negligence, resulted in causing serious harm to a person’s health;

- Article 199 - tax evasion.

According to information available to the editorial board, Alexander Gubarev is also a holder of citizenship of the Republic of Cyprus. It is still unclear how he received it - as the spouse of a citizen of Cyprus, through an investment program or by naturalization. However, in all three cases, granting him Cypriot citizenship was probably carried out in violation of current legislation, since a person with a criminal past does not have the right to receive citizenship of the Republic of Cyprus. Perhaps Alexander Gubarev provided false information to the Cypriot authorities, hiding this fact. It is also possible that he received a Cypriot passport due to his son’s influence on the country’s government structures.

Over the past few years, Alexey Gubarev has registered dozens of companies in Cyprus, Bulgaria, Britain and other countries. Some of them are either unrelated to his core business in IT or only loosely related to it. For example, among them are firms involved in the jewelry business and precious metals trading.

It is noteworthy that these companies are registered to him under various spellings of his name, such as ALEXEY GUBAREV, ALEXEJ GUBAREV, ΑΛΕΞΕΥ ΓΚΟΥΜΠΑΡΕΒ, ALEXEF GKOUMPAREV. Obviously, this is done to complicate the search in databases. This technique is used by many businessmen from Russia to hide their assets.

The same Russian Forbes, the only publication Gubarev trusts to publish important data about him, reported in July 2023 that Alexey Gubarev renounced his Russian citizenship shortly after the start of Russia’s large-scale military invasion of Ukraine. However, the magazine did not explain why this information remained secret for more than a year.

According to our version, the decision to make this information public could be connected with the publications about Gubarev’s connections with the war criminal Mazurovsky in March and April 2023. Such a step was probably taken to create a legal basis for denying any connection with Russia and the Putin regime.

However, this does not prevent Gubarev from regularly traveling to Russia. According to our information, he visited Moscow in October 2023, as well as in February and September 2024, staying in a luxury apartment he purchased in the Federation Tower in Moscow City, registered to his mother, Lyudmila Gubareva. In addition, in September 2024, he came with her to his native Ust-Ilimsk.

He may have come to negotiate the sale of the company United Network LLC, co-owned until December 2024 by his mother, Cypriot citizen Lyudmila Gubareva, and the brother of his long-time business partner Nikolay Dvas, Alexander Dvas. United Network was founded in 2007 by Gubarev and specializes in providing hosting services. In 2015, the owner of United Network became Gubarev’s Cypriot company XBT Holding, represented by the hosting provider Servers.com, which was sold by Gubarev to his closest partner Nikolay Dvas in 2023.

At some point, Gubarev left the shareholders of "Edinaya Set", and instead of him, his mother became the main owner of the company. A good son, caring.

Since December 2024, the company has been 100% owned by Selectel, which in turn is owned by Vyacheslav Mirilashvili and Lev Leviev.

It should be noted that before becoming the property of Selectel, "Edinaya Set" actively worked and carried out state orders, for which it received an FSB license, which implies cooperation with this special service. It is impossible to do without this in Russia.

Alexey Gubarev has Cypriot citizenship, which, according to Forbes, he received through naturalization. However, according to documents available to our editorial office, Gubarev is also a citizen of Lithuania.

It is still unclear when and under what circumstances he received a Lithuanian passport.

The businessman did not respond to journalists’ requests about whether he has Lithuanian citizenship or other questions.

In Limassol, in addition to IT specialists, there is a significant presence of Russian businessmen from other spheres. For example, the Russian Italy Group of Mikhail Sokolov and Timur Dmitriev has already opened two restaurants and is building a third in partnership with Russian restaurateur Arkady Novikov.

Novikov is closely associated with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and the head of the military-industrial corporation Rostec, Sergey Chemezov. In addition, Novikov was Putin’s trusted person during the presidential elections and openly expressed support for his policies.

The Daily Mail published an article in which it accused Arkady Novikov of having ties to billionaire GRU officers, linking the restaurateur to the poisoning of former Russian military intelligence officer Skripal with the toxic substance "Novichok".

Such connections make the “restaurant” business of Mikhail Sokolov and Timur Dmitriev a tool for espionage and expansion of Russia’s influence, covered by seemingly harmless activities.

The influence of Russian businessmen in Cyprus, and in particular members of the Techisland association, extends far beyond the IT sector and covers other key areas of the island’s economy, such as development.