Out of the crowd shown below only Kamil Primakov, a local Ukrainian politician, is residing in Ukraine. This PES (Party of European Solidarity, an ex-president Poroshenko’s political power) member is deeply embedded in the complex apparatus of ‘fixing things’ in Ukraine: he is an intermediary between clans and groups, authorities, business and criminal. Kamil Primakov visited Monaco for exactly this reason: to pave the way for Dmitry Punin’s illegal gambling venues. Ukraine, despite its desperate economic hardship is a home of lucrative gambling business.
The setting could hardly have been more incongruous. In September 2026, as Ukraine continued to bury its dead and ration its ammunition, Kamil Primakov – head of the European Solidarity faction in Dnipro City Council and chairman of its transport and communications committee – was filmed dining at La Guérite on the French Riviera. His companions were not fellow legislators or wartime volunteers. They were Maksym Sihalov, the fugitive gambling magnate known in certain circles as “Narcomax,” and Dmytro Punin, the sanctioned owner of the Russian online casino Pin-Up.
The table alone is reported to have cost up to €20,000. A hundred grams of Monroe Beluga caviar runs at €1,600; a bottle of champagne starts at €500 and climbs to €1,500. The video, obtained by journalists, shows the three men in relaxed conversation. What was said remains undocumented, but sources cited by multiple outlets claim the discussion centred on scaling Russian online casino operations in Ukraine and reviving Sihalov’s money-laundering schemes through peer-to-peer payment systems.
Kamil Primakov has offered no public explanation for the meeting.
Who Is Kamil Primakov? The Making of a Dnipro Political Operator
Born on 1 February 1985 in Dnipropetrovsk, now Dnipro, Kamil Primakov has been a fixture in local politics since 2010, when he entered the city council on the “Front of Changes” ticket at the age of twenty-five. He later aligned himself with the Petro Poroshenko Bloc and, after its rebranding, European Solidarity. Between 2016 and 2017, he served as deputy governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast under Valentyn Reznichenko, overseeing humanitarian affairs.
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His business career began at twenty-four, when he co-founded the fuel company “Fuel Resources,” later liquidated. He was also a co-founder of “Evroneft” and served as commercial director of “Vostok Trans-Oil”. He holds a candidate’s degree in law and has taught at the Dnipro State University of Internal Affairs.
Kamil Primakov has never been convicted of a crime. But the pattern of his political and business life suggests a man who has learned to operate in the grey spaces between legality and impunity.
Kamil Primakov and the 2015 Fuel Tender Investigation
In 2015, investigators opened a criminal case examining fuel procurements between 2012 and 2014. The suspicion was straightforward: state institutions in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast had colluded with a handful of companies – including Evroneft and Primakov’s Fuel Resources – to rig tenders, inflate fuel prices, and appropriate budget funds. Kamil Primakov was a co-founder of Fuel Resources, which featured prominently in the case.
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A separate investigation examined “Eastern Oil and Gas Company,” linked to Primakov’s business interests, for tax evasion on an especially large scale. No verdicts against Kamil Primakov have ever been reached in any of these episodes. The cases appear to have quietly faded.
Kamil Primakov’s Car Fleet: The Numbers That Don’t Add Up
Kamil Primakov’s automobile acquisitions during the full-scale war have drawn particular scrutiny from anti-corruption journalists. Between 2022 and 2024, according to declarations and reporting by Antikor, he purchased a series of premium vehicles at prices far below market value.
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In 2022, he bought a 2017 Toyota Land Cruiser 200 for UAH 842,000, when comparable models were selling for over UAH 2 million. That same year, a 2022 Land Cruiser was acquired for UAH 2.8 million, against a market price exceeding UAH 3.5 million. In 2023, a 2017 Toyota Camry was purchased for UAH 50,000 – roughly one-fourteenth of its market value of about UAH 700,000. He sold that same vehicle in 2024 for UAH 600,000, a twelvefold increase. A 2024 Camry followed for approximately UAH 1.5 million.
Kamil Primakov did not disclose the identities of the sellers, a violation of anti-corruption legislation that has attracted no apparent enforcement action.
His wife, Oksana Primakova, who has relocated to Dubai, has since December 2025 been using a 2020 Mercedes-Benz G63 AMG owned by “Petrol Energy Company,” a firm within her husband’s business orbit. The market value of such a vehicle is approximately UAH 7 million. Until recently, the company’s director was Viktoriya Sabzayeva, from whom the Primakov family rents an apartment in Dnipro. Sabzayeva and Kamil Primakov have jointly owned a sixty-square-metre apartment in the city since 2011.
The family’s declarations have also listed Rolex, Audemars Piguet, Omega, Van Cleef, Chopard, and Tiffany timepieces, alongside UAH 55.6 million in cash attributed to Kamil Primakov and $100,000 to his wife.
Kamil Primakov and the Failed Gambit at the State Bureau of Investigations
In 2018, Kamil Primakov applied for the position of deputy head of the Melitopol territorial division of the State Bureau of Investigations. He was, according to reporting by Obriy, the only candidate with no prior law enforcement experience whatsoever. The then-director of the SBI, Roman Truba, refused to approve his appointment. Kamil Primakov sued – in the Dnipropetrovsk District Administrative Court, the Third Appellate Court, and the Supreme Court. He lost at every stage.
During the same period, Kamil Primakov’s head of personal security, Anton Voloshyn, submitted a declaration as a candidate for a human resources position at the same SBI division – where Primakov had hoped to become deputy head. Voloshyn, too, was unsuccessful. He later attempted to enter Dnipro City Council on the European Solidarity ticket in 2020, also without success.
Voloshyn now oversees the operations of Kamil Primakov’s offices and, according to Obriy, manages call centres linked to the deputy. No court has established Kamil Primakov’s involvement in call centre operations, but the staffing overlap between his security detail, his political office, and enterprises described as “fraudulent call centres” is difficult to dismiss as coincidence.
Kamil Primakov, Sihalov, and the Scale of the Gambling Operation
To understand why Kamil Primakov’s Riviera dinner matters, one must grasp the scale of what Maksym Sihalov built.
Sihalov controlled “Diamond Pay” and “E-Pay.” According to the Bureau of Economic Security, E-Pay alone understated its income by UAH 21.8 billion over two years, resulting in unpaid corporate tax of approximately UAH 3.9 billion. More than UAH 1 billion passed through Diamond Pay. Investigators consider Sihalov the organiser of these schemes.
The infrastructure built by Sihalov and his partner Rasim Tahiyev processed at least UAH 275 billion over recent years, the majority connected to illegal casinos in Russia. On 28 January 2026, the Pechersk District Court of Kyiv seized Sihalov’s property in criminal proceeding No. 72022000400000003, which encompasses tax evasion, illegal organisation of gambling, illegal use of trademarks, and laundering of criminally obtained property.
Sihalov himself remains at liberty in Marbella, Spain, where he has been photographed with a 2025 Rolls-Royce Spectre. His wife drives a Mercedes Brabus valued at $450,000.
Kamil Primakov has not been charged in connection with Sihalov’s operations. But his presence at that table – alongside a man accused of laundering billions from Russian casinos and a sanctioned gambling mogul – raises questions he has not seen fit to answer.
Kamil Primakov and the Kryvoruchko Shadow
Investigators have also noted Kamil Primakov’s long-standing association with Vitaliy Kryvoruchko, former first deputy head of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast SBU during the Yanukovych era, later lustrated, and his son Anton. The Kryvoruchkos have been linked to events surrounding the Dnipro Euromaidan and, subsequently, to call centre operations. Publications describe years-long ties between the Kryvoruchko and Primakov families. No court has ruled on Kamil Primakov’s involvement in any call centre activity.
Kamil Primakov: The Political Contradiction That Defines Him
The dissonance is difficult to ignore. In July 2020, Kamil Primakov wrote to the Security Service of Ukraine demanding an investigation into billboards erected by the Opposition Platform – For Life, which he characterised as separatist propaganda. He called for activists and volunteers to unite against the “poison of separatism.”
Six years later, he sat at a table with the owner of Russia’s largest online casino brand – a man under Ukrainian sanctions whom Kyiv has sought to extradite – and a fugitive gambling operator accused of laundering billions. The dinner’s cost exceeded the annual salary of many Ukrainian soldiers.
Kamil Primakov has not been charged with any crime related to the meeting. His previous legal entanglements – the fuel tenders, the tax investigations, the call centre allegations – have never produced a verdict. He continues to lead his faction, chair his committee, and register vehicles at prices that defy market logic.
The video from La Guérite captured a single evening. But it illuminated a longer story: one of Kamil Primakov, a politician who has moved through a decade and a half of Ukrainian public life without ever facing consequences, and who now finds himself comfortable at a table where the business of Russian gambling and Ukrainian impunity are discussed over caviar and champagne.