Kyiv probe into oligarch Zhevago adds pressure as Ferrexpo nears London listing suspension

Prefer on Google by Dominic Culverwell Kostyantyn Zhevago leaves after his extradition hearing before the investigating chamber of the Court of Appeal of Chambery, central-eastern France, on March 16, 2023. (Jeff Pachoud/AFP via Getty Images) A Kyiv court has authorized a pretrial investigation into wanted oligarch Kostyantyn Zhevago, just days before his mining company is set to be suspended from trading on the London Stock Exchange. Zhevago, who owns the London-listed iron ore producer Ferrexpo, is suspected of running an embezzlement scheme involving $113 million through his now-defunct bank, Finance & Credit Bank, between 2007 and 2015. The Pechersk Court greenlit the investigation request from Ukraine's Prosecutor General’s Office on April 28, a month after French authorities served Zhevago a notice of suspicion for a case involving the misappropriation of Hr 519 million ($11.7 million). Zhevago, who at one point was Ukraine's youngest billionaire, was detained in France in late 2022 after fleeing Ukraine in 2019 following his departure from parliament. Ukraine has sought his extradition twice — in 2023 and 2025 — but Paris refused, citing concerns that he would not receive a fair trial in his home country. Since Zhevago ’s arrest and Kyiv’s subsequent sanctions against him in 2025, Ferrexpo has faced a series of legal and wartime challenges that the company says have caused it to hemorrhage cash and intermittently halt production. Now operating at roughly a quarter of its prewar capacity and with only enough cash to last until August, Ferrexpo’s board said April 28 that the company is likely to be suspended from the LSE on May 1. The company says it needs to raise at least $100 million to keep afloat over the next 18 months. Because it has not yet secured this funding, it cannot finalize and publish its audited 2025 financial results on time. The suspension will remain in place until the audit it complete and the results published. "At this stage, there is no certainty that the group will successfully implement any financing solution. The planned fundraising, if carried out, will be the subject of a further announcement, including the full terms of the planned transaction," Ferrexpo said in a statement . "There can be no certainty as to the expected timing of the lifting of the suspension of listing and resumption of trading of the company’s shares, if at all," the company added. Ferrexpo and many in Ukraine’s mining sector have long argued that the company is being treated unfairly by the government, sending a negative signal to foreign investors. The company has sought to distance itself from Zhevago, noting that he is a minority shareholder with a 49.5% stake, while the remainder is held by international investors including BlackRock. In early 2025, Ukraine’s tax service began suspending VAT refunds , citing Zhevago’s sanctions. With more than Hr 3 billion ($68 million) in refunds currently withheld, Ferrexpo says it has been forced to cut staff and scale back operations. The company has also cited broader wartime pressures, including high electricity costs in Ukraine, power outages following Russian strikes on energy infrastructure, and Russia’s blockade of the Black Sea in 2022–2023, which disrupted its seaborne exports.