Ukrainian investigative journalists have discovered that the son of politician Volodymyr Horkovenko, Nazar Horkovenko, who is studying at London’s Bayes Business School, has opened a company that sells clothing with provocative prints that could be considered drug propaganda. The MP himself admitted that his son does own this business, but refused to condemn questionable messages and images on the T-shirts his son sells, and announced expansion of this business
In September, a journalistic investigation by the Ukrainian publication Informator revealed that Nazar, the son of Volodymyr Horkovenko, a member of Kyiv Regional Council from the European Solidarity party, an ally and advisor to former President Petro Poroshenko, is engaged in a business that may be related to drug promotion. Nazar Horkovenko, a student at the prestigious Bayes Business School in London, co-founded KYIV420 LTD while studying. According to British registry documents, the company specializes in selling clothing, but the name and range of products indicate a possible connection with drug propaganda.
The name of the company KYIV420 LTD evokes associations with the slang term ‘420’, which is a code name for marijuana among consumers. According to Nazar Horkovenko’s website, the main products of his company are clothes with prints that directly or indirectly allude to drugs. For example, among the products presented on the company’s website was a T-shirt with a stylized coat of arms of Kyiv, where a marijuana leaf was used instead of a chestnut leaf. Other samples of clothing contain the names of drugs such as LSD, MDMA, and the antidepressant Xanax.
It is worth noting that the company’s activities, as well as Nazar Horkovenko’s studies in London, have aroused public interest in Ukraine due to the high cost of studying at the British business school. According to the official website of Bayes Business School, a full course of study, including living expenses, costs at least 92,000 pounds sterling. The sources of funding for these expenses remain unclear, as MP Volodymyr Horkovenko’s own income was insignificant in previous years.
In addition, the journalists found that the KYIV420 brand was represented not only on the British market. In parallel, there was a Ukrainian website with the same name, Kyiv420, but under a different domain, which directly sold drugs – marijuana and hashish.
It was not possible to establish a connection between the two sites. However, journalists note that in marketing practice, a scheme is often used when a legitimate business serves as an advertisement for a prohibited product. Given the identical name and time of creation of both platforms, this assumption seems quite logical.
The publication of the investigation provoked a fairly quick response from both web resources in Ukraine and the UK. The Ukrainian drug trafficking website stopped working. A message appeared on its page stating that the resource was blocked. Instead, the British website of Nazar Horkovenko removed the most provocative products from its assortment. In particular, T-shirts with a list of drugs were removed from sale.
After the release of the second part of the investigation, MP Volodymyr Horkovenko, who had previously ignored the facts about his son, publicly reacted. He wrote a post on his Facebook page in which he tried to ridicule the journalists and even accused them of involvement in the activities of a Ukrainian website that sold drugs. The journalists of the publication called these accusations absurd and unethical.
At the same time, Horkovenko admitted that his son is a co-owner of KYIV420, a company that sells clothing with provocative images. Moreover, the MP noted that the journalists’ investigation provoked a resonance and increased demand for his son’s products, so his business plans to expand.
Volodymyr Horkovenko’s public reaction raised new questions about his activities and financing of his son’s business. Thus, investigators asked the MP legitimate questions. In particular, do the expenses for Nazar Horkovenko’s education at a prestigious London business school correspond to the MP’s declared income? The journalists were also interested in which country’s budget the son of a Ukrainian MP pays taxes on his business income to. In addition, the investigators, who emphasize their zero tolerance for drug use, are interested in Volodymyr Horkovenko’s opinion on whether he considers it ethical to promote drugs by selling clothes with questionable prints that symbolize or directly name specific drugs.
At present, questions about transparency of funding sources, connection between the Ukrainian and British websites, and ethics of promoting a drug propaganda brand remain unanswered.
