Alexey Gubarev and his golden flight: how a Russian Cypriot built corruption schemes in Kyrgyzstan

Cyprus has become a haven for many Russian businessmen seeking to secure their capital and gain access to European benefits. Some of them, having received Cypriot citizenship, publicly call the island their home and claim to have severed all ties with Russia.

After becoming Kyrgyzstan’s president in 2020, Sadyr Japarov voluntarily accepted vassal dependence on Moscow and has since consistently strengthened political and economic ties with the Kremlin.

After the introduction of sanctions against Russia, Kyrgyzstan became one of the key platforms for bypassing them, actively used by the Russian authorities with the assistance and connivance of official Bishkek. This country plays a key role in the supply of dual-use goods to Russia. INFOBOMBA 

In January 2025, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Kyrgyzstan’s Keremet Bank for coordinating with Russia’s Promsvyazbank, which services the Russian defense sector. Other banks doing the same have not yet been sanctioned.

In August 2024, the Kyrgyz government established the state-owned Trading Company of the Kyrgyz Republic, which controls foreign trade operations, including those where goods do not enter the country. Many experts view this structure as a mechanism for bypassing anti-Russian sanctions at the state level.

Since 2022, the United States and the European Union have imposed sanctions on at least 12 Kyrgyz companies for helping Russia evade sanctions.

Japarov’s first foreign visit as head of state was to Russia in February 2021. Since then, he has visited Moscow several times, including to participate in the Victory Parade on May 9, a key annual event for Putin in the cult of "victory madness" he created.

In May 2025, Japarov also came to Moscow at the invitation of Vladimir Putin and attended the Victory Parade on May 9 on Red Square.

Japarov at the Victory Parade on May 9, 2025 in Moscow

It is obvious that Sadyr Japarov is dependent on the Kremlin, and this is reflected in both the foreign and domestic policies of Kyrgyzstan.

Japarov and his inner circle have been repeatedly accused of corruption. Investigations by independent journalists show how his relatives and associates have enriched themselves through corrupt deals and abuse of power.

Domestically, Japarov has established a regime of repressive dictatorship. He persecutes the opposition and independent media. Journalists are subject to criminal prosecution on trumped-up charges. Many of them have ended up behind bars, while others have been forced to flee the country and hide abroad, fearing for their lives. Human rights are grossly violated in Kyrgyzstan, laws are practically not implemented, and the courts are subject to the will of the president and his entourage.

Any businessman with common sense understands that investing in the economy of an authoritarian and corrupt Asian republic is pure madness. Of course, unless the investor is personally connected to the president or his entourage - in which case the risks turn into opportunities.

And such investors do exist. There are few of them, and that is why each of them attracts attention. And when investments are directed to obviously corrupt projects, ordinary curiosity turns into a need to investigate such transactions.

One of these obviously corrupt projects has been implemented in Bishkek since late April. According to the Economist, on April 29, the mayor’s office of the capital of Kyrgyzstan signed an investment agreement with the company Invest KG Holding LLC. According to Bishkek Mayor Aibek Dzhunushaliev, the investment will amount to 2.6 billion soms, which is about 30 million US dollars. However, according to experts, the total cost of the project could reach 90 million US dollars.

According to official data, the project involves the reconstruction of the former Western Bus Station building into an exhibition center, the improvement of the Molodezhny and 40 Years of October parks, the construction of residential and commercial buildings on the site of the old Tazalyk bases, and the construction of an underground passage on Zhibek Zholu Avenue.

Other media outlets are talking about the reconstruction of two city parks and the territory of a municipal enterprise, which have no investment appeal. This is an absolutely unprofitable project, in which neither commercial returns nor return on investment can be seen. Everything looks as if the investor was obliged to improve part of the city at his own expense. Perhaps this is done in exchange for access to other, more profitable contracts that are kept secret from the public. In general, the project gives the impression of a cunning scheme for laundering and legalizing money under the guise of a formal investment agreement.

At first glance, this is a typical urban development project. From an economic point of view, it is of no interest to investors: neither the volume of construction, nor the format of the exhibition center, nor the improvement of parks and the construction of urban infrastructure facilities guarantee profit. For any businessman, investing tens of millions of euros in such a scheme would look absurd.

But this project is unique in its own way. The uniqueness of this project is not in the scale of the improvements or in the dubious economy. Its peculiarity is in the unprecedented generosity with which the city authorities are transferring to a private investor key city infrastructure and huge areas of public space in the very center of the capital, approximately 45 hectares.

For the sake of this project, the investor was given the building of the Western Bus Station — and the bus station itself was moved far outside the city. As a result, tens of thousands of people face inconveniences and a sharp deterioration in transport logistics every day. Understanding the true motivation of the authorities, Bishkek residents are increasingly expressing their discontent: instead of thinking about the convenience and interests of citizens, officials, in the opinion of city residents, are guided exclusively by personal gain and secret agreements with close businessmen.

The investor’s figure is of particular interest. According to the Kyrgyz Ministry of Justice, Invest KG Holding was registered in Kyrgyz jurisdiction just three months before the signing of the investment agreement, on January 27, 2025.

The director of the company is a citizen of the Russian Federation Oksana Igorevna Yankovskaya. The founders are a former citizen of Russia, and now a citizen of Cyprus and Lithuania, Alexey Gubarev and the 100% Cypriot company INVEST KG HOLDING LIMITED, where he is the director.

It also became known that Yankovskaya is also the director of another Kyrgyz company, Avtovokzal Muzeum, which, like Invest KG Holding, was also registered on January 27, 2025. Its founders are the same Alexey Gubarev and the 100% Cypriot company AG CAR MUSEUM LTD, where he is also the director.

Although the company "Avtovokzal Muzey" is not formally a party to the investment contract, its connection with "Invest KG Holding" is obvious - both through the general director Oksana Yankovskaya, and through the Cypriot companies, the owner of which in both cases is the same person - Alexey Gubarev.

The companies "Avtovokzal Muzey" and "Invest KG Holding" were registered in January 2025, and at the moment there is no information about their financial condition or operating activities. The same situation is with the Cypriot company INVEST KG HOLDING LIMITED, which was established in November 2024, five months before the contract with the Bishkek mayor’s office was concluded.

The picture is different for AG CAR MUSEUM LTD, a company registered in Cyprus in February 2020. The company has already reported on its financial activities. According to its financial report for 2022, the company’s balance sheet includes several hundred vintage cars valued at 14,906,732 euros as non-current financial assets.

Alexey Gubarev’s passion for cars, bordering on obsession, is well known. In an interview with the travel blog Pipeaway, he talks in detail about his MadWay Rally project, proudly talking about his collection of rare cars, and about car rallies in remote and hard-to-reach regions of the world. In the same interview, he calls cosmonaut Alexey Gubarev his uncle.

This interview gives an idea of the scale of Gubarev’s spending on entertainment that is accessible to very few. This fact is significant in the context of his activities in Cyprus and Kyrgyzstan.

In Cyprus, Alexey Gubarev acquired several dozen vintage cars and set up a workshop for their restoration. In addition to rare cars, he also buys gramophones, radios, telephones and other equipment from past eras. All these items are restored in a workshop he bought specifically for this purpose in Limassol.

According to some sources, Gubarev plans to open a museum of retro technology and cars named after himself, and it was for this purpose that the company AG CAR MUSEUM LTD was created, which is clearly reflected in its name. In the context of the investment contract signed in Bishkek, it is possible that Gubarev decided to implement his museum project in the capital of Kyrgyzstan.

Alexey Gubarev is well known in tech and investment circles. His name first gained widespread international media attention in early 2017, when BuzzFeed published a dossier compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele.

The Cyprus-based XBT Holding, founded by Alexey Gubarev and his long-term partner Nikolay Dvas, became the first foreign company to receive permission to operate servers in Russia in 2015. To do this, in accordance with the current legislation of the Russian Federation, the company received a license for activities in the field of communications, which obliges operators to install technical means of the operational-search measures system (SORM). After receiving the license, the company, in accordance with the current legislation of Russia, contacted the FSB, where it was assigned an authorized person for further interaction. The company’s owners pledged to cooperate with the special services of the Russian Federation and carry out their orders. Given the specifics of this cooperation, it is difficult to imagine that Gubarev and Gursky Yurs are not under the control of the special services to this day.

In 2016, Gubarev and his company XBT Holdings acquired a Moscow-based hosting company called Unified Network, which also used SORM spyware on behalf of the FSB, as required by Russian law. According to the Russian corporate registry, Gubarev, through proxies, remained the owner of this company until December 2024.

In 2021, Gubarev founded the TechIsland association in Cyprus, which united more than 200 technology companies, most of which are of Russian origin. Many of these companies previously operated in Russia under an FSB license and used equipment from the operational-search measures system (SORM), which is used by the FSB for espionage, surveillance and data interception.

Gubarev co-founded the tech company Palta (formerly Haxus) with Yuri Gursky. According to leaked documents from Cyprus Confidential, Putin’s oligarch Roman Abramovich has invested $63 million in European startups through his Moscow-based venture fund Target Global. Much of that money went to Palta and its projects, including the popular women’s health app Flo.

The documents show that in 2020-2021, Abramovich and his affiliates provided loans totaling $23.5 million to the Target Global fund to finance Flo, a service owned by Gubarev.

According to some reports, Roman Abramovich is also interested in Kyrgyzstan. In December 2024, the Asia News newspaper published an article claiming that the Russian oligarch allegedly arrived in the city of Karakol on the same day that President Sadyr Japarov was there. The article did not provide direct evidence of Abramovich’s visit, but a number of indirect signs suggest that he could have actually visited Kyrgyzstan and met with the country’s president four months before the signing of the investment agreement between Gubarev’s structures and the Bishkek mayor’s office, and just one month before the registration of the companies "Avtovokzal Muzey" and "Invest KG Holding". It is unlikely that this was a simple coincidence. Given the well-known joint projects of Gubarev and Abramovich in the past, it is very likely that they continue to cooperate in the framework of investments in Kyrgyzstan. Since Roman Abramovich is under sanctions by most Western countries, it is very possible that Alexey Gubarev, who holds citizenship in Cyprus and Lithuania, is acting as a front for the Russian oligarch, representing his interests through his own structures.

Despite public statements about severing all ties with Russia since 2019, Alexey Gubarev continues to visit Moscow regularly.

In addition, Alexey Gubarev provides ongoing financial support to the administration of his hometown of Ust-Ilimsk. The official website of the mayor’s office regularly features thank-you statements addressed to him for sponsoring various city events.

In 2020, Gubarev donated a bronze sculpture to the city called “Family,” which is difficult to reconcile with his public statements about completely cutting ties with Russia since 2019.

In January 2025, days before Gubarev’s Kyrgyz companies were registered, the Russian edition of Forbes, owned by Kremlin oligarch Magomed Musayev, published an article titled “Northern Delivery: How Russian-Speaking Settlers Changed Cyprus.” The article described how Gubarev had become an extremely influential figure in Cypriot politics. It is alleged that, on his orders, five Cypriot government ministers personally participated in the construction of a Russian school, and that parliament, under his influence, passed amendments to the citizenship law that simplified the naturalization of Russian citizens arriving on the island posing as IT specialists, many of whom are not.

The same Forbes article quotes Alexey Gubarev, who proudly states that he considers Cyprus his home. To support this, he says that during the COVID-19 pandemic, he, along with a group of other Russian IT businessmen, donated a million euros to the Cypriot healthcare system.

At the same time, even a superficial analysis of the interview that Gubarev gave to the travel blog Pipeaway, where he also calls Cyprus his home, allows us to estimate the scale of his spending on personal entertainment. The purchase and refurbishment of cars, the logistics of their delivery to the rally site, the delivery of participants (by plane and helicopter), the organization of camps, food, fuel, repair and maintenance of equipment, interaction with local authorities, an entertainment program, concerts for participants and much more cost amounts that are many times greater than his charitable contribution to support Cypriot healthcare.

His attempts to create a positive image with modest donations stand in stark contrast to his spending on role-playing games, corporate events, various hobbies and the purchase of a white invigorating powder, which he and his friends consume in large quantities. Sources claim that Gubarev is addicted and can no longer live without daily use of this white powdery substance. As well as his circle. In the Russian crowd in Cyprus, this is considered a sign of high status, success and belonging to the elite.

Gubarev spends a lot of money on shamanic practices involving the use of ayahuasca. The fact is that, according to several former employees and acquaintances, Alexey Gubarev and his wife are passionately interested in esotericism and shamanism, including those varieties that are associated with the magical rituals of South American Indians.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Gubarev, according to these people, invited shamans from the Amazon jungle and organized shamanic rituals for himself and close friends on a yacht outside the territorial waters of Cyprus.

During these rituals, sources claim, participants practiced the use of psychotropic substances, including ayahuasca, a traditional Amazonian shamanic mixture of tropical plants that causes hallucinations and altered states of consciousness. Afterwards, they crawled around the deck for a day in their own excrement, not reacting to external stimuli.

Gubarev’s eccentric behavior speaks of his desire to get all the available pleasures that money can buy. And he has a lot of them.

And now this “patriot of Cyprus”, “philanthropist” and “public figure”, loudly declaring his love for the island, suddenly invests tens of millions of euros in dubious projects in a country under the strong influence of Moscow.

According to media reports, in 2023, Alexey Gubarev held his first motor rally across Kyrgyzstan as part of his entertainment project Madway Rally. On the last day of the rally, July 1, 2023, he organized the MadWay Fest music festival in the city of Cholpon-Ata, which marked the end of the rally, which also cost a lot of money.

In 2024, Gubarev organized a rally in Kyrgyzstan again. This time, the country’s president, Sadyr Japarov, met with the participants.

The video recording made on July 1, 2024 shows Sadyr Japarov and Alexey Gubarev communicating as if they knew each other well. It would be naive to assume that such a meeting was accidental or not agreed upon in advance. It is known that Japarov is not inclined to meet with foreign tourists visiting Kyrgyzstan, but here he made an exception. All this suggests that contact between Gubarev and Japarov could have been established long before the public meeting on July 1, 2024.

Alexey Gubarev (right) with Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov

In late February 2024, a video was published on social media - the TikTok account DUNE kg and the Instagram profile dunekg0520 (both currently unavailable) - showing gold bars being prepared for export from Kyrgyzstan to Cyprus.

The bars were unmarked, indicating that the Kyrgyz gold was minted for the black market.

Kyrgyz investigative journalist Bolot Temirov, who received information about the gold smuggling, published a video on his YouTube channel under the title: “Is Japarov exporting gold to Cyprus?”

Fragment of translation from the video:

"Assalomu alaikum, chief. The guys brought the cargo. I personally checked and accepted it. Buyursa, everything is fine. Sabyr ava (in the Issyk-Kul dialect of the Kyrgyz language, "ava" is a respectful address to elders - literally "brother"). There is no information about the shipment yet, but we are sending it now," the man says, pointing to one of the boxes with ingots.

The voiceover comments:

"The boxes show the following markings: the date is July 2, 2023, the number of units and the inscription IKU / LCA - these are the codes of the airports of Tamchy (Kyrgyzstan) and Larnaca (Cyprus). And indeed, on July 2 (the day after the end of the MadWay Rally 2023), the corresponding flight took place. A private jet of a Maltese airline took off from Tamchy at 15:41 Bishkek time and landed in Cyprus five hours later."

Bolot Temirov established that this was a charter flight AXY120Y of an Embraer Lineage 1000 aircraft with registration number 9H-DEE, owned by the Maltese company AirX Charter, carried out on July 2, 2023, with a landing in Larnaca.

In the video with gold bars, a man reports to a certain "Sabyr ava". Let us recall that the President of Kyrgyzstan Sadyr Japarov has a brother named Sabyr, and this is not the first time that his name has been mentioned in the context of suspicions of illegally exporting gold from the country.

On May 9, 2024, a new episode of this story appeared on social networks: the dunekg0520 account published information about the allegedly received money and screenshots of the WhatsApp correspondence.

One of the photos with bundles of cash shows the date "July 3, 2023" - the day after the plane with gold arrived. Also visible on the box are the inscriptions "Muras" and "IKU" - the code for Tamchy airport. The signature and name under it are illegible. The phone from which the correspondence was conducted (presumably belongs to Sabyr Japarov) is registered in Switzerland.

Translation of the WhatsApp correspondence (from the second video, now deleted):

13:00 - Hello, Sabyr ava! How are you?

13:00 - Good. How are you?

13:01 — Okay, ava. I’m in. I’ll send you a video, watch it and delete it right away.

13:03 - Good.

13:08 — Deleting the video.

13:11 - Okay, delete it.

13:18 — Departure at 15:00.

13:18 - Okay, they’ll give it to you tomorrow after lunch.

13:18 - Got it, accepted.

02:31 - Hi, boss. Passed on.

07:48 — Hello. Ok. Write when you receive it.

07:50 — Yes! Boss, at my request, when can I take it? My son’s operation is in a week, I need to pay.

07:58 - Don’t worry, just wait.

20:50 - The boss picked it up.

20:51 - Overall, how much did it turn out to be?

20:58 - Today the first batch - 63,500,000 "greenbacks".

(The video shows bags of dollars.)

21:27 - We can already send Raikul.

21:27 — [voice call]

21:30 — That’s right. Good. Deliver it in full.

The context of the correspondence indicates that the money was transferred on July 3, the day after the private flight from Tamchy to Larnaca arrived. The recipient reports that he has received the first installment - $63.5 million, and asks if the money can be transferred to Raikul (President Japarov’s sister).

The same private jet used to deliver the gold to Cyprus flew from Larnaca to Croatia on July 3, and then to Dubai. The phrase "The boss took it" may indicate that the money was transferred in Croatia.

Full flight of the jet 3/07/23 Larnaca-Croatia-Bulgaria-Dubai

After the release of the investigation titled "Is Zhaparov exporting gold to Cyprus?" a video appeared on one of the Kyrgyz anonymous channels, which was declared as a "refutation" of the information about the export of unmarked gold from Kyrgyzstan. Apparently, this was an attempt by the authorities to justify themselves through a loyal information resource and to remove the charges of smuggling. However, the "refutation" itself looked unconvincing and, on the contrary, only increased suspicions.

The video showed a list of passengers on a flight that departed from Tamchy Airport to Larnaca on July 2, 2023. The list included well-known representatives of the IT business in Cyprus and heads of large companies. One of the passengers also included a well-known Cypriot lawyer.

The video claims that the plane was only carrying "tourists" and that there could not have been any gold on board. But this formulation raises more questions than it answers.

The following names are among the passengers on the Tamchy-Larnaca flight on July 2, 2023:

"Alexeis Siarki, Georgios Hadjigeorgiou, Mark Fitzpatrick, Sergey Tokarev, Petr Valov, Kristina Valova, Anna Gubareva, Kristina Gubareva, Elena Radaeva, Andrejs Zavadskis, Olga Pavlyutkina, Elena Udalova, Oleg Netepenko, Natalia Mutovkina, Alexey Gubarev, Pavel Radaev."

This list is interesting for several reasons. Firstly, there are no random people among the passengers - almost all of them are owners and top managers of large IT companies and their relatives. According to Forbes, it is this group of businessmen, headed by Alexey Gubarev, that has significant influence on the government and parliament of the Republic of Cyprus.

Secondly, the list is missing entries numbered 19 and 20, which probably means that the names of two passengers were deliberately removed. It is not known for certain who exactly occupied these seats. However, according to our sources in Kyrgyzstan, they could have been members of President Sadyr Japarov’s entourage, who were accompanying the cargo – gold bars sent on the same flight to Cyprus.

One of the men, whose name may have been removed from the list, is allegedly heard on video reporting to the "boss" that the cargo is ready for shipment.

It is important to note that there are no other flights from Tamchy to Larnaca on July 2, 2023.

After the boxes of gold bars were taken to Cyprus, the authorities of the country handed over a huge plot of land in the center of the capital of Kyrgyzstan to Gubarev and destroyed the bus station for him, which was needed by ordinary people, residents of the city. Probably, this was done in exchange for the favor shown to Sadyr Japarov. First gold, then races with high-ranking guests, then land for business - everything came together in a logical chain.

The choice of director for the Kyrgyz companies Invest KG Holding and Avtovokzal Muzey is also curious. There is no information in open sources that Oksana Yankovskaya has ever been involved in investment or development business or has experience in these areas.

Yankovskaya with Bishkek Mayor Dzhunushaliev

However, it was possible to establish that Yankovskaya had previously worked for a long time in the administration of the city of Ust-Ilimsk and held the position of deputy mayor.

Yankovskaya at the Ust-Ilimsk City Hall

According to data from the Russian Pension Fund, Alexey Gubarev’s mother, Lyudmila Ivanovna Gubareva, who received Cypriot citizenship in 2018, also worked in the same administration.

The Ust-Ilimsk city administration website has published numerous messages mentioning Yankovskaya and the Gubarevs. In particular, it is reported that Oksana Ivanovna initiated the installation of a sculptural composition in the city under her jurisdiction, which was paid for by Alexey and Lyudmila Gubarevs. Yankovskaya took part in the opening ceremony of the sculpture.

Undoubtedly, Yankovskaya is not a stranger to Gubarev. Therefore, he appointed her to act as a nominal director, which allows him to formally distance himself from the management of the project and control it through a trusted person. Perhaps this was done to avoid publicity, since Gubarev avoids publicity. In any case, in this particular case, Gubarev acts in his characteristic manner - he tries to hide his actions from the public as much as possible and disguise his business interests. In the same context, he created more than a hundred companies registered under various spellings of his name, such as ALEXEY GUBAREV, ALEXEJ GUBAREV, ΑΛΕΞΕΥ ΓΚΟΥΜΠΑΡΕΒ, ALEXEF GKOUMPAREV, ALEXEU NKOUMPAREB.

How he manages to distort his data in documents, and how the distorted data passes the check and remains undetected in the company register, remains a mystery.

However, given the enormous influence of Alexey Gubarev on the government and parliament of Cyprus, as Forbes wrote, it can be assumed that this influence also extends to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic, which is in charge of the register of companies. Moreover, as Forbes also reports, the Minister of Internal Affairs of Cyprus, along with other members of the government, readily responds to Gubarev’s requests and even personally took part in the construction of a Russian school at his request. Forbes did not specify what underlies such a trusting relationship between the Minister of Internal Affairs of Cyprus and other members of the government and the Russian businessman.

A review of the registration data of numerous companies associated with Alexey Gubarev creates the impression that he uses several passports with different spellings of his name. It is also possible that Gubarev has Kyrgyz citizenship - this is indicated by some sources, although there is no official confirmation of this information at the moment.

Alexey Gubarev’s business in Kyrgyzstan undoubtedly relies on connections with local elites who demonstrate loyalty to Russia. The very fact of his investment activity in this country, which allows him to bypass the control of European regulators, raises many questions about Gubarev’s real goals. The scheme by which the investments were made only increases suspicions. In the conditions of the authoritarian and corrupt regime of Japarov, where no prudent investor would dare to enter – especially with a claim to European values – Gubarev’s participation looks, at the very least, ambiguous.

Alexey Gubarev is a symbol of hypocrisy, using Cypriot and Lithuanian citizenship to access the benefits of the European Union, but remaining loyal to the Kremlin elites.

Author: Maria Sharapova