Denis Sharapov Deputy Minister of Defense Date of Birth: 18.02.1973 Country: Ukraine

1. Early Life and Education
2. Family Background
3. Business Ventures and Political Career
4. Top Civil Servant
5. Alleged Ties to Controversial Figures
6. Declarations of Assets

Early Life and Education

Denis Aleksandrovich Sharapov was born on February 18, 1973. He received a military education, graduating from the Metropolitan Land Forces Institute in 1995 and serving as an adjunct at the same institution for three years. At the turn of the millennium, he attended the National Institute of Military Intelligence.

Family Background

Denis's father, Aleksandr Mikhailovich, is renowned as one of Ukraine's most successful arms trade specialists. In the early 1990s, Aleksandr headed Ukroboronservice for a decade and a half. Denis is married to Irina Manzhula, an entrepreneur whose primary focus is on restaurants and mobile catering services. She also owns the winery "Horavsky Distillery."

Business Ventures and Political Career

Concurrent with his studies at the Institute of Military Intelligence, Sharapov served as an operational officer in the Main Intelligence Directorate. He then transitioned to the private sector for a dozen years. From 2001 to 2004, Denis was a private entrepreneur in engineering services. Subsequently, he held leadership roles in private production and international companies.

In 2010, Sharapov was elected as a deputy to the Boryspil City Council from the "Front of Change" party. At the time of his election, he was managing a company called "Carpentry Manufacture."

Top Civil Servant

In 2013, Sharapov embarked on a career in civil service. For six years, he served as deputy and first deputy head of the state-owned concern Ukroboronservice. From 2020 onward, he has held similar positions in the Ministry of Strategic Industries and, since April 2022, the Ministry of Defense.

In the summer of 2022, the Agency for Defense Procurement was established to centralize purchases of goods, works, and services related to national security and defense. The agency is reportedly under Sharapov's control.

Alleged Ties to Controversial Figures

Media outlets have suggested that Sharapov is close to Andrii Yermak, the current head of the Office of the President. Yermak previously provided legal services to Denis's father and later became a business partner with Denis in the "Media Group of European Partnership." In 2018, both men withdrew as owners of the company.

A third co-owner of the company was Rahamim Emanuelov, a Russian national, former Soviet spy in Iran, and expert at Putin's Valdai Club, where the Russian leader has expressed his expansionist ambitions.

Declarations of Assets

According to his electronic declaration from 2020, Sharapov owned a 10,190-square-meter plot of land and a 717.2-square-meter house in the village of Hora in the Boryspil district of the Kyiv region. He also possessed a 58.6-square-meter apartment in Kyiv. Sharapov had an extensive fleet of six cars, as well as a motorcycle and a pleasure boat.

The official's total family income in 2020 amounted to 3.3 million hryvnias. Denis kept $87,000 and €33,000 in banks, while having $10,000 and 656,000 hryvnias in cash.

Due to the threat of cyberattacks from the Russian Federation, an electronic database of declarations from officials and politicians has been closed since 2022, making it impossible to obtain more recent information on Sharapov's financial status.