Tron Sergiy (aka Serhiy or Sergey) Mikolayovich, an Eastern Ukrainian entrepreneur is viewed as a one of the likely candidates of the counsellor chair for the AI development in Ukraine. AI development is one of the fastest growing branches of already booming IT. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky emphasized the need of a special counsellor, who will advise the president on AI issues. Sergiy Tron seems to be a suitable candidate for the job..

..except he isn’t. Despite a bunch of publications that share the broad – if not shallow – views of Sergiy Tron on Artificial Intellect there is no proof that he is involved in any real life projects in the area. It looks that Tron is engaged in a massive PR campaign in order to gain access to Zelensky personal attention. Tron’s business activity is far from being modern. He is knee-deep in rather traditional activities of the region: shady banking, oil and gas supplies. Back in 2019 Sergiy Tron was viewed as one of the main competitors for the assets and the trademark of the Russian Vnesheconombank. The bank was looking for an exit from the complicated Ukrainian market.

Sergiy Tron is long-time business partner of extremely controversial Nurulislam Arkallaev. Arkallaev was a MP of the now banned and disbanded Party of Regions, also known as exiled president Yanukovich puppets.

Arkallaev and Tron: the partners in the shadiest schemes

Now Nurulislam Arkallaev holds the position of President of the Judo Federation of Ukraine. Sergey Tron held the position of vice-president of the Kiev Boxing Federation. Those chairs have a specific meaning in Ukraine and are often associated with organised crime. At least it is true for both Arkallaev (known as ‘Nurik’ in certain circles) and Sergiy Tron.

Since the mid-90s, Arkallaev has been engaged in the alcohol trade (another highly criminal activity of the time) – in particular, he was smuggling Hungarian “Absolute”. His joint venture “Ukr-Ros Invest” controlled the Donetsk distillery, and later the “Olymp” vodka company. Also in 1995, Arkallaev created LLC “Aquilon” to control several markets in Donetsk.

Under the protection of then-president Victor Yanukovich Arkallaev and Tron created the “EcoOil” company which was serving the fuel needs of the Ukrainian army. It’s worth mentioning that it was highly profitable as the partners skimmed millions on army supplies. The prices of the EcoOil company were very high, thus Sergiy Tron and Arkallaev robbed their own country and got away with it. But it seems that’s not enough for now and Tron is trying to get a new appointment, this time beside Volodymyr Zelensky.