Yaroslav Hryshyn, Mykhailo Prasol and Rudolf Akobyan: How the Artashes criminal group created the General Chereshnya brand for billion drone contracts

Recently, the owners of the General Chereshnya drone manufacturer brand became embroiled in a high-profile scandal over alleged threats of violence against employees of a charitable foundation who refused to purchase their drones at inflated prices.

Therefore, our editorial team decided to recall the background of General Chereshnya and trace all stages of its development — from drug trafficking, racketeering and contract killings to involvement in political projects and the alleged theft of humanitarian aid.

Who Is Behind General Chereshnya

General Chereshnya is one of the largest suppliers of unmanned aerial vehicles to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, reportedly producing around 100,000 drones per month. In February 2026, General Chereshnya was among the Ukrainian companies selected by the U.S. Department of Defense to participate in the $1.1 billion Drone Dominance Program.

Officially, the brand is owned by CENTER OF UNMANNED TECHNOLOGIES LLC (EDRPOU code 45208113), registered in September 2023.

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Officially, the beneficiary of CENTER OF UNMANNED TECHNOLOGIES LLC is Yaroslav Hryshyn, while the company’s CEO is Mykhailo Prasol, a member of the Zaporizhzhia City Council. The public face of the General Chereshnya brand is media figure Rudolf Akobyan.

According to unofficial information, General Chereshnya’s “political cover” is allegedly provided by prominent Kharkiv politician and businessman Boris Lozhkin. He is reportedly said to control General Chereshnya through his “right-hand man,” former MP Hryhoriy Shverk, who, according to media reports, is also a co-founder of the project.

The Artashes Criminal Group: How General Chereshnya Began

All three key representatives of General Chereshnya — Yaroslav Hryshyn, Mykhailo Prasol and Rudolf Akobyan — are allegedly members of the Zaporizhzhia-based ethnic Armenian criminal group known as Antrashi.

The leader of the Zaporizhzhia criminal group is reportedly Artashes Avetikovich Sargsyan, a criminal figure who was subjected to sanctions by Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council in 2021.

Mykhailo Prasol, Artashes Sargsyan, Yaroslav Hryshyn. Yerevan, August 2021

Within the Artashes criminal group, the current beneficiaries of General Chereshnya were reportedly assigned the following roles:

– Yaroslav Hryshyn – legal representation, corporate raiding, blackmail;

– Mykhailo Prasol – “spokesperson,” corporate raiding;

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– Rudolf Akobyan – media hitman.

It is worth noting that even before the General Chereshnya brand was registered, Yaroslav Hryshyn not only regularly posted photos with criminal group leader Artashes Sargsyan, but also officially represented his interests in court, something he did not hesitate to boast about on his social media accounts.

Yaroslav Hryshyn attempts to have sanctions Lifted from his boss — Artashes Sargsyan, Head of the Artashes Criminal Group

Interestingly, before working for crime boss Artashes Sargsyan, Yaroslav Hryshyn served the interests of Kadyrov’s associates.

Attorney Yaroslav Hryshyn’s career began with a contract with well-known Chechen crime boss Murad Saidov, who controlled part of Zaporizhzhia’s criminal underworld until 2012 and is now reportedly an aide to the representative of Chechen Republic head Ramzan Kadyrov in Crimea.

Yaroslav Hryshyn began his career as Murad Saidov’s lawyer and “Fixer”

Yaroslav Hryshyn was a trusted associate of Murad Saidov, handling all of his affairs, from providing legal support for corporate raids to communicating with law enforcement agencies. It was Murad Saidov who gave the previously unknown Zaporizhzhia lawyer Yaroslav Volodymyrovych Hryshyn his start in life.

After Saidov was forced to leave Zaporizhzhia for Crimea, Yaroslav Hryshyn was taken under the wing of Saidov’s “partner” in the drug business — Artashes Sargsyan, the head of the Artashes criminal group. Meanwhile, Murad Saidov became part of Ramzan Kadyrov’s inner circle and first became the “overseer of Crimea.” After Russian forces seized Enerhodar and Melitopol, he reportedly became the “overseer” of those two cities as well.

Yaroslav Hryshyn’s new patron, Artashes Sargsyan, the head of the Artashes criminal group, unlike Murad Saidov, managed to remain in Zaporizhzhia thanks to the patronage of Yuriy Yenakiyevsky. Sargsyan reportedly established ties with him through the now-deceased pro-Russian crime boss Armen Sargsyan (Gorlovsky).

Armen Gorlovsky also helped Artashes enter the “alcohol” business during the Yanukovych era. The network of Leprikon beer kiosks and illegal drinking establishments across Zaporizhzhia, controlled by Yaroslav Hryshyn and Mykhailo Prasol, is reportedly what remains of the once-powerful alcohol empire of Artashes Sargsyan and Armen Gorlovsky.

Notably, after the head of the Artashes criminal group was forced to move to Yerevan, the friendship between the two figures from the criminal underworld only grew stronger, as Artashes Sargsyan and Armen Gorlovsky gained the opportunity to meet regularly in third countries.

Yaroslav Hryshyn was present at some of these meetings as well, reportedly responsible for the legal side of the Artashes criminal group’s illicit business in Zaporizhzhia. What else was discussed at such meetings, particularly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, can only be speculated about.

Thanks to powerful patrons such as Murad Saidov and Artashes Sargsyan, Yaroslav Hryshyn reportedly felt effectively untouchable before Ukrainian law.

For example, in 2018, while already serving as a member of the Zaporizhzhia Regional Council under the patronage of the Artashes group, Yaroslav Hryshyn was behind the wheel of his car when he fatally struck a man on the Simferopol–Kharkiv highway.

After the fatal accident, Hryshyn allegedly funded a major smear campaign targeting the deceased man and his family. It was claimed that the victim “was drunk, naked, and threw himself under Deputy Hryshyn’s car.”

At the same time, Yaroslav Hryshyn himself reportedly evaded justice. The Ukrainian Interior Ministry published an official notice stating that he was wanted by law enforcement, which was later removed and replaced with a 404 error.

Yaroslav Hryshyn was placed on the wanted list by Ukraine’s Interior Ministry after allegedly attempting to evade justice under Part 2 of Article 286 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine — violation of traffic safety or vehicle operation rules by persons driving vehicles, resulting in the death of a victim.

Eventually, Hryshyn managed to have the criminal case over the fatal traffic accident closed. According to his law firm, the proceedings were closed by the regional prosecutor’s office in May 2020. The deceased man left two minor children, whom, according to the available information, Hryshyn did not provide any assistance to.

Mykhailo Prasol — from ordinary corporate raiding to a member of the Zaporizhzhia City Council and CEO of General Chereshnya

Mykhailo Prasol is Yaroslav Hryshyn’s closest friend. Both are well known in Zaporizhzhia as alleged members of the Artashes criminal group.

Members of the Artashes criminal group, Mykhailo Prasol and Yaroslav Hryshyn

While Yaroslav Hryshyn was reportedly primarily responsible for legal support within the Artashes group, the group allegedly brought Mykhailo Prasol into the Zaporizhzhia City Council to advance its criminal interests at the regional level. During his tenure, Mykhailo Prasol became involved in dozens of scandals related to corruption, corporate raiding and various kinds of “gangland disputes.”

According to First Zaporizhzhia, Mykhailo Prasol was allegedly involved in the seizure of land belonging to local farmers. In October 2016, Prasol, accompanied by heavily built men wearing balaclavas from a private security company, allegedly attacked employees of the “Shchaslyvyi I.A.” farm who were harvesting sunflowers. They were reportedly held in the field for an entire day, subjected to physical force and threatened with weapons. The farm’s tractor driver was beaten.

The publication also mentions a case involving an alleged corporate-raiding attack by members of the Artashes criminal group and Mykhailo Prasol against the Zaporizhzhia establishment “Beer Barrel.”

The Artashes criminal group and Mykhailo Prasol’s alleged corporate raid on the beer barrel establishment

“We were subjected to an attempted genuine ‘corporate takeover.’ There were threats, intimidation and pressure. All our documents concerning the operation of the chain complied with legal requirements, but the council member and his team were not interested in that at all,” recalls the administrator of the Beer Barrel chain.

Another case worth mentioning concerns the Preobrazovatel plant, where Mykhailo Prasol and Yaroslav Hryshyn allegedly attempted to seize a controlling stake on behalf of a plant shareholder called “F.S.B. Plus.”

It is worth noting that Mykhailo Prasol’s alleged penchant for corporate raiding put the Zaporizhzhia City Council member in a highly awkward situation.

During another alleged attempt by Mykhailo Prasol and the Artashes group to “take over someone else’s property” in Zaporizhzhia, he was confronted by representatives of another local criminal group, Tyson, who were reportedly acting on behalf of the affected businessman, and was publicly humiliated.

According to PROBLEMATIC, citing the Telegram channel “This Is Zaporizhzhia,” the incident took place on November 15 at the El Cafe restaurant at around 8 a.m.

“A group of young men with athletic builds, apparently having spotted the elected official from the street, entered El Cafe and headed toward the table where Mykhailo Prasol and Rudolf Hakobyan were sitting.

Mykhailo Prasol, apparently sensing trouble, immediately stated that he was a council member and could not be beaten. The group of about 20 young men from the Tyson criminal group then began spitting in Mykhailo Prasol’s direction while shouting something about dishonesty and corruption, thereby ruining the council member’s clothes, hairstyle and mood,” the publication reported.

It is worth noting that despite these periodic public humiliations, corporate raiding proved to be a fairly profitable activity for Mykhailo Prasol. In 2018, the National Agency for Prevention of Corruption (NACP) accused Mykhailo Prasol of having undeclared income worth nearly $3.5 million.

It is worth noting that, as in the case of Yaroslav Hryshyn, the publication was later removed from the official NACP website, leaving behind a “404 error.”

Rudolf Akobyan — a Black PR Specialist in the Service of the Artashes Criminal Group

The biography of Rudolf Akobyan, a member of the Artashes criminal group and, at the same time, the public face of General Chereshnya, is also of particular interest.

Artashes criminal group member and the p[ublic face of General Chereshnya, Rudolf Hakobyan

Rudolf Volodymyrovych Hakobyan is originally from Zaporizhzhia. He entered the world of big politics thanks to his childhood friends, the well-known political consultants Denis and Roman Pyatygor.

Together with the Pyatygor brothers, Rudolf Hakobyan participated in various political campaigns and built up the necessary connections, which allowed him to become a member of the Zaporizhzhia City Council in 2010 while simultaneously working as a political consultant. It is worth noting that Hakobyan became a city council member thanks to crime boss Yevhen Anisimov, who at the time was the “overseer” for the Party of Regions in the Zaporizhzhia region.

However, as soon as the political landscape began to change, Rudolf Hakobyan joined the Zaporizhzhia-based ethnic Armenian criminal group “Artashes,” where he became closely associated with Yaroslav Hryshyn and Mykhailo Prasol.

Beginning in January 2018, Rudolf Hakobyan served as an adviser to then-governor Kostiantyn Bryl, while continuing to maintain close ties with the Artashes criminal group. We recall that it was Kostiantyn Bryl who allegedly allowed the Artashes group to plunder Enerhodar. With the help of Enerhodar mayor Pavlo Muzyka, who was allegedly controlled by Artashes Sargsyan, huge amounts of money reportedly began disappearing from the city budget.

Interestingly, the first criminal case and searches involving Rudolf Hakobyan were allegedly connected to his participation in the Artashes criminal group. In October 2022, law enforcement officers searched the premises of Rudolf Hakobyan, Zaporizhzhia lawyer Yaroslav Hryshyn and council member Mykhailo Prasol. A photograph of the search warrant appeared online. It stated that, according to the pre-trial investigation, former city mayor Volodymyr Buriak had allegedly entered into an agreement with the criminal organization “Artashes” and transferred control of the municipal enterprise “Zaporizhrynok” to the group.

The alleged scheme involved collecting payments from entrepreneurs operating at “Zaporizhrynok.” Those who refused to pay were allegedly intimidated by members of the Artashes group and deprived of the opportunity to conduct business on the territory of the city’s municipal markets. The investigation reportedly identified the following individuals as being involved in the alleged criminal scheme: Yaroslav Hryshyn, Oleh Kolomoiets, Rudolf Hakobyan and Mykhailo Prasol.

Within the structure of the Artashes criminal group, Rudolf Hakobyan is reportedly responsible for media operations. In particular, he was involved in promoting the Zaporizhzhia-based Telegram channel “Gnyla Chereshnya,” from which the name of the General Chereshnya drone manufacturer brand originated.

It therefore follows logically that Rudolf Hakobyan became the media face of General Chereshnya.