According to the Prozorro. Sale system, the State Property Fund put the nationalized Zaporizhzhia Aluminum Plant up for re-privatization with a starting price of only UAH 152 million.

In 2001, the first privatization of ZALK took place. The State Property Fund sold 68.01% of the plant’s shares to AvtoVAZ-Invest. Under the terms of the agreement, the investor had to pay UAH 380 million for the shares and pay off the plant’s debts to Ukreximbank in the amount of $75 million. However, AvtoVAZ-Invest and Oleg Deripaska’s Cyprus-based Velbay Holdings, to which the shares were re-registered in 2007, failed to settle the debt.

Oleg Deripaska also acquired another 29.5% of the plant’s shares on the free market, which resulted in the Russian concentrating control over 97.5% of Zaliznyk’s shares.

Although in 2012, Ukraine terminated the sale and purchase agreement for a 68.01% stake in Zalka through the court, Deripaska still has 29.54% of the shares, which are registered to Cyprus-based Velbay Holdings.

After the start of the full-scale invasion, Ukraine seized these shares through the High Anti-Corruption Court as part of sanctions against Deripaska, and they were transferred to the State Property Fund in February 2024.

The Russian owners, who over 14 years “actually robbed the enterprise and destroyed the unique primary aluminum production,” earned money only by leasing property, selling assets and production stocks.