The first scene with Andriy Naumov begins dramatically. He is seen from behind, walking through a park. A man in his mid-40s, beefy figure, white shirt. The sun is shining, the leaves are swaying in the wind. As Andriy Naumov turns and looks into the camera, animated flames blaze across the image. “The man you see on the screen,” says a voice over, “was wanted by the Kyiv regime.” And: none other than Volodymyr Zelenskythe Ukrainian president, wanted to get his hands on this man. “Dead,” it says from the voiceover, “or alive.”
What looks like a bad action film is the work of Russian state television, broadcast in October this year as a report on the Kremlin-affiliated television station NTW. The backdrop for the propaganda broadcast: Vienna. At the center is Andriy Naumov, a former general in the Ukrainian secret service SBU. A man who is concerned with leadership in the Ukraine has thrown up, where there are several proceedings against him. And who is now openly making common cause with Russia. In 2022, a few hours before the Russian attack, he fled Ukraine, first to Germany, then to Serbia – and finally to Vienna.
The fact that Naumov ended up in Austria of all places is probably no coincidence. Vienna not only has a reputation for being a safe haven for assets, bank accounts and real estate transactions. But more recently also for people who are avoiding legal action in their home country. This is currently particularly evident in the example of some prominent Ukrainians. It’s about people who are suspected of corruption – or are even suspected of having betrayed the state.
People like Naumov. The Ukrainian authorities accuse him of fraud, illegal enrichment and abuse of office. In addition, in close cooperation with Moscow, he is assigned a leading role in the long-term and immediate planning of the major Russian attack on Ukraine. Specifically, Naumov is said to have leaked sensitive information about the “security systems of the Chernobyl exclusion zone” to the Russians before the full-scale invasion, according to a Ukrainian investigation file available to ZEIT. In it, Naumov is also described as a confidant of Moscow who was intended for a key position in a Russian-occupied Ukraine.
The Ukrainians want to bring him to court; the authorities have already submitted an official extradition request Austria placed. Nothing has happened so far, Naumow could not be reached for ZEIT. But it is significant that Naumov seems to feel so safe here that he is not even afraid to appear as the protagonist in a 46-minute Russian propaganda program and rail against Zelensky, the Ukrainian government and his former employer SBU. Zelensky is portrayed as a “dictator” whom the Europeans cheer “like Adolf Hitler did back then” and the Ukrainian security services are referred to as the “Gestapo”. Sometimes Naumov strolls along the Danube, sometimes he looks at the city from a roof terrace with a view of the radio tower in the Vienna Arsenal. In between, quickly cut images of the Viktor Adler market, of women in hijabs and homeless people – the not-so-subtle message: Vienna, a depraved example of Western decadence, unchecked migration and cultural decline.
In the Ukrainian media they talk about the “Vienna Battalion”
Naumov is by no means the only Ukrainian who is in Vienna Law enforcement withdrawn from his homeland. Just a few examples: Kyrylo Shevchenko, former governor of the National Bank of Ukraine, is being investigated in Kyiv for embezzling the equivalent of five million euros. Or Oleksandr Tupytskyj, judge at the Constitutional Court of Ukraine until 2020, who is being investigated in a whole series of corruption cases in Ukraine.
According to research by Ukrainian media, Timur Minditsch is said to have recently been in Vienna. The former Zelensky confidante is considered a key figure in the current corruption scandal surrounding the Ukrainian energy sector. Ukrainian journalists have now tracked him down in Israel. In the meantime, the former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for National Unity, Oleksiy Chernyschov, who is also involved in this scandal, is said to have fled to Vienna.
And last but not least, the most prominent case: Dmytro Firtash, one of the richest and most powerful oligarchs in Ukraine. In 2014 he was arrested in Vienna on a US arrest warrant, but was released on 125 million euros, the highest bail amount in Austrian legal history. Since then, he has been legally defending himself against his extradition – so far with success. Incidentally, his lawyer: Dieter Böhmdorfer, FPÖ Minister of Justice from 2000 to 2004.
