While Verbytsky is in a legal battle with NABU: Khrystyna Ilnytska was spotted in the company of Rafael Goroyan
The girlfriend of the scandal-plagued former Deputy Prosecutor General Dmytro Verbytskyi, “philanthropist” and businesswoman Khrystyna Ilnytska, was spotted in the company of Rafael Goroyan. Rafael is the founder and chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Prometey Group of Companies, and he ranks firmly among the hundred richest Ukrainians. For those who might have missed this high-profile couple, Khristina has generously posted a gallery of photos on her Facebook pages.
Who is Khristina’s wealthy companion, Rafael Goroyan?
Goroyan is 50 years old. He was born in Yerevan (Armenia) and graduated from Mykolaiv National University of Shipbuilding.
In 1999, he founded the grain trading company “Prometheus.” Today, it is a group of companies that owns 34 grain elevators with a total capacity of 2 million metric tons, as well as a land bank of 20,000 hectares. The “Prometey” group’s total exports in 2022 amounted to $280 million. In 2021, Rafael Goroyan ranked 78th on the list of the 100 richest Ukrainians.
Rafael Goroyan is a legendary, high-profile, and somewhat dramatic figure in the Ukrainian agribusiness sector. His grain empire, “Prometey,” has been reaching new heights for years, and Mr. Rafael’s name has repeatedly made its way from the glossy pages of magazines to the official records of law enforcement agencies, tax authorities, and regulatory bodies.
Indeed, there were times when dark clouds loomed over Mr. Goroyan’s business horizons: searches at grain elevators, blocked tax invoices, frozen bank accounts, and high-profile public scandals with tax authorities. At the time, the agribusinessman spoke to the media about “pressure on business,” “official arbitrariness,” and the bankruptcy of “Prometheus.”
He began his journey in agribusiness in 1999 with the founding of the “Prometheus Grain Trading Company.” Just two years later, the entrepreneur acquired his first major asset—the Lotsky Elevator in the Mykolaiv region for $25,000, and in 2002, he founded the real estate development company “Investbud Plus,” securing financing of approximately $20 million.
In 2014, Goroyan expanded his operations by acquiring three more grain elevators worth $6 million. This rapid growth in assets allowed him to rank 78th in the 2018 “100 Richest Agribusinessmen of Ukraine” list, with an income of $69 million. Goroyan’s wealth is also evident in his private real estate: investigators noted the scale of his estate, whose entrance gates are modeled after the Arc de Triomphe in France.
The Citizenship Case and Allegations of Offshore Schemes
The first blemishes on Goroyan’s reputation date back to 2008, when a scandal arose over the legality of his acquisition of a Ukrainian passport. According to media reports, Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs revoked the businessman’s citizenship and confiscated his domestic and foreign passports. At the time, Anatoliy Naumenko, head of the Mykolaiv Regional Police, publicly stated that five criminal cases had been opened against Goroyan.
In addition, investigators accused entities within the “Prometey” group of using offshore schemes to transfer funds abroad through the companies PROMETEY SWISS SA (Geneva) and GRV-AGRO LTD (London). In 2021, Prometey Swiss S.A. was added to the sanctions list of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council due to its involvement in tax evasion schemes and alleged smuggling. According to analysts’ estimates, the state budget has lost hundreds of millions of dollars due to such financial schemes.
High-profile legal actions against the agricultural holding have occurred in the past as well:
- In 2016, during searches, the State Fiscal Service seized over 5 million UAH and temporarily suspended the company’s operations by disconnecting it from the Unified Register of Tax Invoices.
- In 2018, the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine fined “RB-Capital,” a company belonging to the “Prometey” group, 309,000 UAH for violating legislation on the protection of economic competition.
Physical Confrontations and Incidents of Violence
The company and its top management have repeatedly appeared in law enforcement reports due to incidents involving the use of force:
- April 2018: During legal proceedings, Goroyan’s deputy, Wilhelm Mirzoyan, assaulted a female investigator who was reading a search warrant, causing her bodily harm.
- November 2022: A high-profile attack occurred at a “Nova Poshta” branch in Mykolaiv, where a man beat a married civilian couple with a tire iron and threatened them with a weapon. The investigation determined that the attacker was Musa Hasan oglu Musazade, head of security for the “Prometey” concern.
Conflict with “NIBULON” and Questionable Ties
Among corporate disputes, it is worth noting the 2017 conflict, when “Prometey” accused “NIBULON” of failing to pay 4.2 million hryvnias for delivered grain. Following the tragic death of “NIBULON” founder Oleksiy Vadatursky as a result of Russian shelling in the summer of 2022, Goroyan published an official obituary.
At the same time, the media has repeatedly raised questions about the businessman’s inner circle. According to media reports, Rafael Goroyan maintained ties with Mykolaiv-based separatist Kostyantyn Tistol, who is involved in the activities of the occupying authorities in the Kherson region. In addition, Goroyan’s mother—Armenian businesswoman Vardush Mirzoyan, who is a co-owner of several of his assets (including PJSC “Pomichnyansky Elevator”)— has openly demonstrated her support for Russian propagandists on social media.
Despite the above facts, in the fall of 2022, the company “Prometey” signed major export contracts to supply wheat from the port of “Chornomorsk” as part of the “grain corridor” initiative.
A Shift in Public Rhetoric: From Talk of Bankruptcy to Investments
Despite years of lawsuits, frozen accounts, and sanctions, the Prometey Group continues to operate, and the business itself is thriving.
It is noteworthy how Goroyan’s public stance in the media has changed: as recently as August 2025, the businessman was giving extensive comments and making statements about “unbearable pressure from tax authorities.” According to him, due to the blocking of over $10 million in VAT refunds and constant comprehensive audits, the company’s Ukrainian operations were on the verge of bankruptcy. Goroyan emotionally criticized government agencies, claiming that the tax authorities were “finishing off what the war hadn’t destroyed” by demanding paper documents dating back five years.
However, within just a few months, the clouds over Goroyan’s business began to clear:
- No actual steps were taken to shut down or declare “Prometey” bankrupt.
- As early as the fall of 2025, the company publicly announced a large-scale modernization and expansion—specifically, the transition to electric vehicles (the purchase of a fleet of 35 new BYD electric cars), as well as the large-scale implementation of artificial intelligence into its business processes.
Thus, the public threats to shut down operations and “disappear into the horizon” have given way to the holding company’s next stage of development, while Goroyan himself continues to maintain his position in the agricultural sector, combining business with an active presence in the social media spotlight.
A New “Founder” Role in Ilnytska’s Story
An event took place in the capital recently that Khristina Ilnytska—a true businesswoman, philanthropist, and ambitious explorer of new horizons—simply could not afford to miss.
A business meeting was held in Kyiv on the topic: “The Formula for Scaling Up in Times of Turbulence: Investment Capital, Strategic Alliances, and the New Role of the Founder.” The title sounds so substantial that to pass it by without gaining insight into the profound inner world (and, undoubtedly, the investment potential) of founders would have been nothing short of a crime by Ilnytska against her own business and philanthropic self-development.
It was right there, in the maelstrom of turbulence and strategic alliances, that Khristina Ilnytska happily posed alongside keynote speaker Rafael Goroyan. And Khristina’s business activities seem quite logical and timely. While her close associate, former Deputy Prosecutor General Dmytro Verbytskyi, tirelessly wears out his luxury shoes in court hallways, trying to prove to anti-corruption agencies and the whole world the crystal-clear origin of his wealth, life doesn’t stand still. Khristina’s heart (and perhaps her bank account) needs new strategic partnerships and potential investors. And here comes Mr. Goroyan—an experienced founder who knows absolutely everything about “turbulence”: from NSDC sanctions to State Fiscal Service raids. He’ll provide guidance and make investments.
Not Khristina’s first “investor”: how Ilnytska is managing her wealth and preparing to lead “Batkivshchyna”
Let’s recall that Dmytro Verbytskyi is by no means the first… wealthy and influential man in Khrystyna Ilnytska’s life.
She previously lived with businessman and yacht club co-owner Yuriy Pryimak, whose life—as recalled by former partners and his widow—ended under rather strange circumstances, and his entire estate—including yachts and real estate worth millions—mysteriously ended up in Ilnytska’s hands.
Pryimak’s former business partners and acquaintances believe that Ilnytska deliberately hastened his death by treating him with “magical herbs” instead of evidence-based medicine. After all, the mother of the potential future leader of “Batkivshchyna” practices fortune-telling. One of Pryimak’s business partners even showed documents from the hospital where his melanoma was treated with homeopathy.
As Ilnytska herself stated in a letter to “Schemes,” she accumulated a considerable fortune after working with Pryimak, including 15 pieces of movable and immovable property. These include three plots of land, two houses, an apartment, six cars, and three yachts.
Later, a new passionate love entered her life—the then-Deputy Prosecutor General Dmytro Verbytskyi. And once again, a miracle: in an astonishingly short time, Ilnytska acquired a brand-new Porsche Macan T for $100,000, a luxury beauty salon, and a three-story estate in the “Konik” cottage community worth over $1.2 million (for which, according to documents, a symbolic 2 million hryvnias was paid).
NABU has launched an investigation into the former official’s possible illicit enrichment, and the National Agency for Corruption Prevention (NAZK) has identified signs of unjustified assets totaling over 30 million hryvnias (including property in Antalya, Odesa, and Kyiv). Next to Verbytskyi’s house was a property belonging to Ilnytska herself, purchased at 24 times below market value, which she transferred to her mother’s name just 16 days after the NABU investigation began.
Political Comeback in Odesa
Today, this tireless couple leads a vibrant political and public life in Odesa. Both have established charitable foundations and now, decked out in luxury brands, high-end watches, and accessories worth as much as a small apartment, they hand out meager bags of groceries and cheap tea to low-income retirees and the needy (something they have repeatedly posted about online with a smile).
At the same time, Verbytskyi and Ilnytska have taken control of the local branch of the “Batkivshchyna” party. And against the backdrop of the charges brought against Yulia Tymoshenko, the leader of the parliamentary party, active discussions have begun behind the scenes: who will lead the party if the trial proceeds to a verdict? Observers note that, at Verbytsky’s instigation, the party leadership may well turn its attention specifically to Khrystyna Ilnytska.
In short, it’s becoming increasingly interesting to watch these “strategic alliances” and business forums unfold. Dmytro Verbytskyi already confidently holds the status of a “double EX gentleman”—as both a former prosecutor and a former husband. The main thing for him right now is to at least hold onto these positions and not earn that title a third time. And to all new potential partners and investors at business meetings, I’d advise drinking only tried-and-true coffee and avoiding any “herbal brews.” Life is turbulent enough as it is; there’s no need to test fate’s resilience as well.
