In previous parts of this investigation, we revealed that Maksym Krippa had provided false information about his education and the origins of his “first million.” But there is another key episode where his fabricated biography shifts from mere embellishment to a matter of public concern: the year 2015, when Krippa decided to enter politics.
According to his own account in an interview with Forbes, Krippa was invited to run for the Kyiv City Council by restaurateur Serhiy Husovskyi, who at the time headed the local list of the political party Self Reliance (Samopomich). Although Krippa wasn’t a member of the party, he was included in their list as a majoritarian candidate for the 100th district of Kyiv. He lost the election, but the documents he submitted left a paper trail.
As a candidate, Krippa filed an official biography and income declaration with the Central Election Commission (CEC). These documents, obtained from the CEC, became the key to uncovering yet another series of fabrications.
The autobiography Krippa submitted to the CEC had never been published before. He invested significant effort in erasing this part of his past—scrubbing media mentions, investing in SEO—all in order to keep his failed political bid out of sight.
But there’s plenty worth revisiting. Alongside the already debunked myth of his “first million,” new falsehoods emerge: a fabricated first job and a position at a company that didn’t even exist at the time he claimed to work there.
In the income declaration, Krippa reported an annual income of just 97,000 UAH—a modest sum for someone who, four years later, would go on to purchase the Dnipro Hotel. When viewed alongside his fake university diploma, these inconsistencies form a pattern of systemic dishonesty—recorded in official documents submitted to a state institution. This raises questions—especially for the Antimonopoly Committee, which routinely approves Krippa’s acquisitions of strategic assets without resistance.
Let’s start with the first inconsistency: Krippa claimed he worked as a financial analyst at the “Center for Foreign Investment Promotion” from 1996 to 1999. However, no legal entity with that name existed during that period. An analysis of state registries, archives, and even telephone directories from the time shows no trace of such an institution. This means Krippa either invented a fake employer or is concealing the true nature of his activities during those years.
The second issue concerns his claim that from 2000 to 2003, he served as the director of UMTS LLC. Yet the Unified State Register shows that this company was only registered in 2003. Thus, it could not have existed between 2000 and 2002. This fabricated entry was clearly inserted to create the illusion of an unbroken professional trajectory.
The third episode was a political scandal that erupted around Krippa later that same year. Samopomich issued an official statement accusing him of selling spots on the party list:
“We were surprised to learn that Maksym Krippa was selling places on the upcoming election list in the name of Samopomich. The most shocking part of this story is the complete lack of judgment among those who paid ‘fees’ to enter a parliamentary list that hadn’t even been formed yet. After law enforcement reached out to the party, we’ve been unsuccessfully trying to contact our former member, M. Krippa.”
Neither Krippa nor Husovskyi responded to our official inquiries regarding the matter.
The information Krippa disclosed in his declaration—just 97,000 UAH in income, no corporate rights, no mention of investments or business interests—paints a picture of an average entrepreneur, not the future owner of the Dnipro Hotel, an esports empire, and a portfolio of elite real estate.
This gap between image and reality becomes even more suspicious against the backdrop of accusations surrounding Krippa: from ties to Russian entities to the laundering of gambling revenues. In such a context, every lie in an official document is not just a harmless detail—it’s part of a broader system of concealment.
And 2015 was the beginning of that system—the moment Krippa stepped into the public eye. The very first thing he did was lie.
