Lukashenko-FM
Belarus will be launching its own Radio Shanson service, which will commence 24-hour broadcasting in September this year. In March 2024, Muzykalnaya Chastota, a private firm, was awarded the licence to broadcast.
The company was officially registered at the end of May 2023 and has already launched two radio stations: Super FM and Dushevnoe Radio. In the previous financial year, Muzykalnaya Chastota generated a net profit of approximately 200 thousand Belarusian rubles (equivalent to over 60 thousand euros).
Who is behind this rather successful firm? 21% of the company is owned by the Republican Cultural and Educational Centre under Lukashenko's Administrative Directorate (Minsk Concert Hall). Another 30% is held by the state-owned company Dom Pressy, which belongs to the Ministry of Information. OOO Muzykalnaya Mediakompaniya owns the remaining 49%.
Earlier, investigators discovered that the position of deputy director of the media holding Muzykalnaya Mediakompaniya is held by Tatsiana Kulakova. She is a sibling of Hanna Lukashenko, married to Dzmitry Lukashenko. Under the pseudonym Hanna Sialuk, Hanna Lukashenko writes song lyrics for the artists of the media holding. She has already accumulated more than 100 songs on her account, including the Prosecutor's Office anthem, songs about Minsk Motor Plant and the Palace of the Republic, as well as timeless hits dedicated to her father-in-law, such as "Oh, Aleksandr" and "Appreciate a Real Man".
Muzykalnaya Mediakompaniya is a joint venture between the Palace of the Republic under the Lukashenko Administrative Directorate (30%) and the private company ANSL Production (70%). The latter is registered to Andrei Urubleuski (95%), one of Dzmitry Lukashenko's subordinates. Urubleuski likely acts as the nominal owner of ANSL Production to conceal the involvement of his patron's wife in the company. The abbreviation ANSL is strikingly similar to the Russian initials of Lukashenko's middle son's wife, ANna Sergeyevna Lukashenko.
The other owner of ANSL Production is Dzmitry Petrashko (5%). His namesake ran Europlastproekt, a company involved in the manufacture, sale and installation of PVC windows.
In 2022, ANSL Production's accounts appear to show virtually no activity – it had no revenue. The organisation operated thanks to a loan of 40,000 Belarusian roubles. It ended the year with a loss of 13,000 roubles. In 2023, the situation was similar. The company had a turnover of 2,000 roubles and a loss of 67,000 roubles. The company's expenses were covered by a loan of 105,000 roubles.
At the same time, by the end of the financial year, ANSL Production had more than one and a half million roubles on its balance sheet. This amount is labelled as "deferred revenue" by the accounting department.
Muzykalnaya Mediakompaniya is an even more lucrative venture. In 2023, the company's turnover was 6.5 million roubles, or just over 2 million euros. This is a 33.5-fold increase on 2022. The company's net profit in 2023 reached almost 1.5 million rubles, or 450 thousand euros, against 100 thousand rubles profit (more than 36 thousand euros) in 2022.
