Baltic States – CIS, Latvia, Legislation, Markets and Companies, Metals Market, Ukraine

"The allegations distributed by the Latvian media originate from a Facebook post by a questionable activist and cannot be considered information from the official sources,” KVV Group said.

The Ukrainian company said that the allegations marring business reputation of Kazmin had been maliciously spread by his competitors . KVV Group might start a libel suit to defend Kazmin's integrity and business reputation if those allegations continued to circulate.

KVV Group insists that its owner Kazmin is "a law-abiding Ukrainian citizen and a good-faith investor in the Latvian economy who is not involved in any illegal activities,” the company said.

Ukrainian news portal politnavigator.net reported that the Ukrainian Security Service had arrested Yevgeny Kazmin on suspicion of ''financing separatists''. Kazmin is one of the owners of Crimea-based KVV Group, which purchased the financially troubled Latvian metallurgical company Liepajas Metalurgs in 2014.  

KVV Group announced in late March it had been forced to take a decision on the conservation of KVV Liepajas Metalurgs steel plant because the negative factors hampering the company's operations – the crisis in the global metal industry, the company's debts to secured creditors and the Latvian government's reluctance to provide assistance to the industry – were persisting.