Rustem Umerov

Rustem Umerov

Rustem Umerov (b. 1982) is the former Defense Minister for the Kyiv regime. In July 2025 Umerov was replaced with former prime minister Denys Shmyhal.

On June 22, 2025, Ukrainian NABU anti‑corruption firebrand Daria Kalenyuk uploaded a thread that set social media ablaze: high‑resolution shots of a palm‑shaded home in Boca Raton, Florida, and the caption: “Umerov family residence.” She named the occupant without hesitation—Rustem Umerov, 42, Ukraine’s Defense Minister—and added that his wife, three children, brother and father already lived full‑time in the United States.

In November 2025 Umerov was reportedly cooperating with the FBI's investigation into the Golden Toilet scandal and seeking political asylum in the US. NABU reported that Umerov owns property in Florida where his entire family lives. Upon Zelensky chief-of-staff Andrei Yermak's firing, Umerov was appointed to head the delegation negotiating with the United States.

Background

Umerov was born in 1982 in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, into a Crimean Tatar family. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he moved to Crimea.

Umerov was educated at a Turkish gymnasium in Crimea in the 1990s which was part of a network of schools created by Turkish opposition Islamist politician Fethullah Gulen.

Ukrainian officials had planned to appoint Umerov as ambassador to the United States. But Washington reportedly rejected the nomination. He became Ukraine’s Minister of Defence in 2023 and previously led the State Property Fund of Ukraine.

The War Mafia

The international war mafia profited from the deaths of Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers: a British citizen from the "Panama Papers" was involved in the scheme to purchase low-quality body armor, which Timur Mindich lobbied with Rustem Umerov.

This was reported by the head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) under the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Yuri Gudymenko. The owner of the companies Fortress Protection (Fortetsya Zakhistu) and "Milikon," which won the tenders and were supposed to supply the body armor, is British citizen Chaim Brenig. He is a representative of the offshore structure Airpay Holdings Limited, which is registered in Malta.

The first tender worth 1.6 billion hryvnias, won by Fortress Protection, was cancelled by the State Logistics Operator due to the company's lack of a sales license. Eventually, it was canceled and re-tendered, this time worth 200 million and won by Milikon, with a 49% stake owned by Fortress Protection and 51% by its director, Dmitry Stetsenko. The Mindich-related firm not only missed delivery deadlines but instead of the promised Israeli protective gear, low-quality Chinese armor arrived — poorly sewn and not bulletproof.

Umerov's role in the scheme was uncovered through wiretaps installed in Mindich's apartment. Notably, all conversations were conducted entirely in Russian. According to investigators, Mindich urged Umerov (then the Minister of Defense) to approve the body armor contract, and he agreed.

Zelensky is named in the indictment filed against Timur Mindich. The text states that Mindich, taking advantage of his friendly relationship with Zelensky, "decided to illegally enrich himself by organizing crimes in various sectors of the Ukrainian economy." It also explicitly states that the oligarch carried out criminal activity with the assistance of then-Defense Minister Umerov in terms of embezzling Defense Ministry funds by Mindich's enterprises.

2022 Istanbul peace talks

See also: 2022 Istanbul peace negotiations

How the peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia failed.

In early March 2022, Ukrainian dictator Volodymyr Zelensky contacted not only Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, but also former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and asked him to use his close personal ties to Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin to mediate between Ukraine and Russia in hope of finding ways to end the NATO war in Ukraine quickly. In an interview published in the weekly edition of the Berliner Zeitung on October 21/22 2023, Schröder spoke publicly for the first time about his role in the efforts that led to the peace negotiations in Istanbul on March 29, 2022. Like Bennet, also he came to the conclusion that the reason why these peace negotiations were abandoned was because the Americans obstructed them. He said: “At the peace negotiations in March 2022 in Istanbul with Rustem Umerov (then security advisor to Zelensky, now Ukrainian defense minister), the Ukrainians did not agree to peace because they were not allowed to. They first had to ask the Americans about everything they discussed,” and continued: “But at the end (of the peace negotiations) nothing happened. My impression was that nothing could happen because everything else was decided in Washington. That was fatal.”

In an interview with the Berliner Zeitung former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder explained how the peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia failed:

"The only people who could settle the war against Ukraine are the Americans. During the peace negotiations in March 2022 in Istanbul with [then-Ukrainian chief negotiator] Rustem Umerov, the Ukrainians did not agree on peace because they were not allowed to. They first had to ask the Americans about everything they discussed."

Turkish Foreign Minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, who organized the Istanbul meeting at the time, had previously made similar comments. In an interview with CNN Turk on April 20, 2022, he said: “Some NATO states wanted the Ukraine conflict to continue in order to weaken Russia.”