In the first part of our investigation into Mykola Udianskyi, the honorary consul of Romania in Kharkiv, we detailed his close ties to russia, his russian citizenship, and a series of cryptocurrency scams carried out with his friend and business partner Bohdan Prylepa.
But one part of his life deserves a separate spotlight — Udianskyi’s long-standing relationship with the criminal underworld.
How Mykola Udianskyi Helped a Suspected Contract Killer Leonid Mytrov Hide from Justice
In June 2019, Interpol agents found Kharkiv criminal figure Leonid Mytrov — who was wanted by Ukrainian law enforcement — hiding in a house in Montenegro. The house belonged to Mykola Udianskyi. Mytrov was extradited to Ukraine later that year, in December 2019. At the time, he was hiding from authorities due to his suspected involvement in a series of contract killings.
Leonid Mytrov, now 42, is the leader of the organized crime group “Zalyutynski,” named after the Zalyutine neighborhood of Kharkiv. Since 2015, the gang was part of a larger criminal structure led by Vadym Kazartsev, also known as “Kniaz” (“The Prince”), which specialized in contract killings, raids, robbery, and extortion across eastern Ukraine.
In 2019, for example, members of Kniaz’s gang — including Oleksandr Poliakov, Perviz Hubert Ogly Ismailov, and Oleksii Kobylnytskyi — attacked construction company director Yurii Omelianenko and forced him to hand over control of his business, TOV “Budivelnyk,” to Kobylnytskyi. The gang planned to use the firm to launder money from illegal operations. According to police reports, they later used this company — in collusion with officials from “Skhidbudtranshaz” and the state-owned company “Ukrgazvydobuvannia” — to steal over 50 million UAH in 2020 via fictitious business transactions.
Kazartsev’s group was also implicated in the murder of Yurii Diment, a business partner of Kharkiv mayor Hennadii Kernes, as well as in the killing of Volodymyr Borokh, a key witness in the 2017 murder of former russian State Duma deputy Denis Voronenkov.
Voronenkov was shot in central Kyiv in March 2017. The suspected gunman was Ukrainian citizen Pavlo Parshov, while the alleged mastermind was russian crime boss Volodymyr Tyurin. After Voronenkov’s assassination, Yurii Vasylenko — another criminal figure linked to Tyurin — decided to push Kniaz’s group out of Kharkiv. Allegedly, Tyurin had promised to help Vasylenko take control of the city’s criminal scene.
In response, Kazartsev launched a violent campaign against his rivals. In November 2017, a member of his gang named Titov shot and killed Eduard “Lipa” Akselrod outside his home. In October 2018, Vladyslav “Mammoth” Bezruk survived an assassination attempt after being tracked by Leonid Mytrov in person. And in January 2019, Kniaz’s men attacked Oleksii Lohvynenko, head of Kharkiv’s Criminal Investigation Department, who had been working against local organized crime. That same month, Vasylenko was abducted at gunpoint in moscow.
After this, Mytrov was placed on a wanted list and fled to Montenegro, where he lived in Udianskyi’s home. Although he was eventually captured and returned to Ukraine, he managed to avoid all legal consequences. According to BlackBox OSINT, Kazartsev paid $400,000 to an official in Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office to make the charges against Mytrov disappear. As a result, all criminal cases were closed by February 2020.
By May 2020, Mytrov was back in Kharkiv — attending Mykola Udianskyi’s birthday party. Several other members of the Zalyutynski gang were also present. Later that year, on November 29, Mytrov celebrated his own birthday in Dubai — hosted once again by his friend Udianskyi.
Their relationship was clearly close. In September 2019, Udianskyi’s wife Yana issued a power of attorney to Mytrov’s parents — Kateryna and Valerii Mytrov — giving them control over a Toyota Land Cruiser 200 with license plate AX00****.
In October 2019, police opened a criminal case (No. 12019220500001856) into the murder of Volodymyr Viktorovych Borokh. According to investigators, on October 25 around noon, an unknown individual shot Borokh multiple times in a supermarket parking lot on Klochkivska Street in Kharkiv. Borokh died at the scene. The case named both Leonid Mytrov and his close friend Mykola Udianskyi as persons of interest.
That same month, Vadym Kazartsev died in a German clinic after battling cancer. Several crime figures — including Leonid Mytrov — tried to fill the power vacuum in Kharkiv’s underworld.
On April 14, 2021, Kharkiv police arrested several members of the Zalyutynski group for extorting $700,000 from a local farming executive. The incident had started weeks earlier, on March 24 in the town of Paniutyne, where gang members attacked the farm owner and demanded he sign over his business. When he refused, they left funeral wreaths on his damaged car as a threat — and offered him “peace” in exchange for $700,000.
The farm owner reported the incident to police. During the money drop at the Kharkiv Palace Hotel, five Zalyutynski members were arrested. Mytrov, tipped off about the sting, escaped to Montenegro once again. According to BlackBox OSINT, Mykola Udianskyi continued to visit Montenegro in between trips to Ukraine and the UAE. In May 2021, Udianskyi threw another birthday party — this time in the Emirates — and Mytrov flew in from Montenegro to attend.
Which Other Members of the “Zalyutynski” Crime Group Are Linked to Consul Udianskyi
At that same birthday party in May 2021, another guest was Oleg Shyriaiev. A month later, in June, Udianskyi was seen with him at the Dubrovskyi restaurant in Kharkiv. Shyriaiev, known by the nickname “Shyrkin,” is the founder of a group called Eastern Corps. A few years ago, he had a falling-out with Ukraine’s National Corps and switched sides — joining Kniaz’s gang, where he took part in business raids and used violence to settle conflicts.
Shyriaiev is also known to have had close ties with Ilya Kyva, a former MP from the now-banned Opposition Platform – For Life party. He was involved in Kyva’s public organization “Patriots for Life”.
Another friend of the honorary consul who is currently in custody is Yurii Poltavskyi. He has direct links to Mytrov and has been repeatedly charged with robbery, drug distribution, and assault. He is currently being held in the Kharkiv pre-trial detention center. We also mentioned him in Part 1 of our investigation — he was the man to whom Udianskyi transferred ownership of his company “Yedinarcoin” after the E-Dinar Coin project collapsed. In short, Poltavskyi was a frontman for Udianskyi and received financial support from him while he was free.
Another of Udianskyi’s associates being held in the same Kharkiv detention center is Dmytro Oleksandrenko, known as “Kaban”. He’s a member of the Zalyutynski group and was one of the five arrested in April 2021 for extorting money from the agricultural businessman. According to our sources, Oleksandrenko had helped Udianskyi on several occasions while he was not in custody.
Still on the wanted list since September 20, 2021, is Pavlo Solopov — nicknamed “Pasha America”. He’s Leonid Mytrov’s godson and a member of the same criminal gang. He had previously been charged with both violent and financial crimes and is reportedly on good terms with Udianskyi.
Another figure linked to both Mytrov and Udianskyi is Oleksandr Halkin, a convicted member of the Zalyutynski group known in the underworld as “Tiulia”. According to BlackBox OSINT, he, like Mytrov, lived at Udianskyi’s house in Montenegro for a while. In October 2021, Tiulia stabbed an officer from Ukraine’s Strategic Investigations Department during an incident at the Bolero nightclub in Kharkiv.
Then there’s Dmytro Shapovalov — known as “Huliver” — who has a particularly close connection with the consul. On November 1, 2020, at around 5:49 a.m., he killed a man named Ruslan Smyrnov during a fight at the Biani restaurant. Shapovalov was not alone — he was with other members of the Zalyutynski group, including Pavlo Solopov and Dmytro Oleksandrenko. After the killing, Shapovalov took the blame, and the others went into hiding. But none of them faced consequences — according to BlackBox OSINT, Mykola Udianskyi paid a large sum of money to “resolve” the issue.
Two months after Shapovalov’s arrest, Udianskyi helped get him out of detention. The court changed his status to house arrest, and later to night-only curfew.
Udianskyi is also reportedly acquainted — through Mytrov — with one of the most powerful criminal bosses in Ukraine, Serhii Lysenko, known as “Liora Sumskyi”. Lysenko currently lives in Turkey, and according to BlackBox OSINT, Udianskyi has visited him there.
In July 2024, Europol officers and French police arrested Leonid Mytrov — the leader of the Zalyutynski crime group from Kharkiv — on the French Riviera. After russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, many members of his gang who were wanted by Ukrainian authorities fled abroad. While hiding in France, Mytrov had already managed to set up a new criminal group involved in car theft and other property crimes.
Interestingly, in February 2025, the Criminal Investigation Department of Ukraine’s National Police in Kharkiv issued another alert: Leonid Mytrov was once again declared wanted for serious crimes.
“The suspect may be driving a black Toyota Camry with license plate AX77**** or a white Toyota C-HR with plate number AX44****,” the statement read.
Did Mytrov somehow manage to avoid prosecution again after being caught in France? And did the honorary consul Mykola Udianskyi help him — just like he’s helped Mytrov’s other criminal associates?
How Udianskyi’s Chechen Friend Hasan Askhabov Kidnapped and Tortured People
As we noted in Part 1 of this investigation, Mykola Udianskyi has ties not only to Kharkiv’s criminal underworld, but also to figures close to Chechen leader ramzan kadyrov. In the past, Udianskyi freely posted photos with Chechen men, including fighters from the Akhmat fight club — which is owned by kadyrov himself. Among them were Rustam Kerimov and Hasan Askhabov.
In January 2025, Askhabov was arrested by police in Bali. He was suspected of robbing and kidnapping a Ukrainian citizen, Ihor Yermakov. According to reports, Yermakov had been beaten and tortured by a group of russian men who forced him to transfer $200,000 worth of cryptocurrency to their wallet. One of them was Askhabov — the same man who, in 2023, had already been detained in Thailand along with his brother, Khusein Askhabov, for kidnapping, torturing, and robbing an Italian citizen. In both cases, the brothers escaped prosecution.
It’s likely that the photo of Hasan Askhabov with crypto businessman Mykola Udianskyi was taken on the island of Bali — where Udianskyi had lived for a long time, and where Askhabov and his gang abducted the Ukrainian victim and stole his crypto.
With ties like these — to known criminals, violent offenders, and men from kadyrov’s inner circle — it raises a question: how did Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs approve Mykola Udianskyi as Romania’s honorary consul in Kharkiv?
Whatever the answer, every day that he continues to hold this diplomatic title raises more questions about the kind of people who are being handed diplomatic passports in Ukraine.