Owner of office with live crocodile denies embezzling funds for energy facility protection

Businessman Vladislav Sokolov, whose luxurious office with a live crocodile sparked widespread backlash on social media, released a video statement in which he denied accusations of embezzling funds allocated for the protection of energy facilities.

He claims that his company has not received a single kopeck from the state for work already completed.

Sokolov began his statement with an apology for speaking in Russian and said he is the head of an enterprise specializing in wholesale trade of ferrous metal products. He has been in this business for 24 years.

According to him, in November 2025, the then-head of the Kyiv Regional Military Administration, Mykola Kalashnyk, invited him to participate in a project to protect the energy sector. Together with the company “Consulting Bud,” his enterprise developed a project for the physical protection of transformer substations, which involved installing a 24-meter-high reinforcement frame and anti-drone protection using armored sheets. The project was approved and was selected from a large number of other potential contractors, including the State Agency for Infrastructure Restoration and Development. The protective structure was built within three weeks, despite bad weather. The work was completed by the end of December 2025.

Sokolov claims that the finished facility was repeatedly visited by representatives of the Presidential Office and foreigners, who gave high praise to the protection. Kalashnyk, he said, “received political dividends.” However, his company was not paid “a single kopeck” for the materials and work performed.

In March, Kalashnyk said that payment for the work could only be made after the level of protection was raised to the second degree, which involves building a concrete shelter 60 centimeters thick. At the same time, the official praised the company’s work and offered it the opportunity to install protection on another 26 substations in the Kyiv region, promising timely payment. The development of this project was handled by “Consulting Bud,” while Sokolov’s enterprise only supplied metal products.

In April, Kalashnyk also ordered protection for cogeneration units in the Kyiv region, without advance payments or signed contracts. Sokolov’s company completed the order in record time. This work was also not paid for. This situation repeated again in the summer. Sokolov then listed a long series of tasks his company had performed to protect the energy sector, receiving nothing for the work. Meanwhile, Kalashnyk became the Minister of Restoration.

He added that he did receive an advance for one project, but purchased materials for work worth four times that payment. According to him, construction of protection is still ongoing, but the media only shows facilities where work is behind schedule “for a number of reasons.” Nearly completed facilities are not shown, “even though they are the vast majority.”

Sokolov claims that the campaign defaming him was launched by Kalashnyk, is completely baseless, and is aimed at making him a scapegoat in the situation with the failure of the energy facility protection program. He said that on October 16, the SBU conducted searches at his premises on a fabricated pretext. The SBU seized all the money. Kalashnyk threatened him that this was just the beginning, and if Sokolov’s company did not complete the work on protecting energy facilities at its own expense, a harsher follow-up would come.

Sokolov added that he bought the notorious apartment with a pool back in 2009, and the office where the crocodile lives in 2011. The crocodile was officially purchased from the Odesa Zoo for $2,500, and it has never been sick.