A political row has erupted in Bulgaria over who allowed an upscale coastal development to be built on protected land by a controversial businessman from Ukraine.
Svetoslav Todorov
When police found 104 newly-built dwellings and detained 29 workers from Ukraine and Moldova in a raid on a recently established but still unoccupied upscale housing development near the Bulgarian city of Varna last month, it sparked a political dispute in the country.
The intervention followed investigations by the anti-corruption platform BIRD and local activists, prompting police to swoop on May 26.
They found a development called the Forest Club, built on protected green-belt territory on the outskirts of Varna, near the remains of the Aladzha cave monastery and the Golden Sands seaside resort.
The suburbs of the popular summer holiday destination have seen a boom in new dwellings over the last two decades.
The disputed investment is a project of Ukrainian real estate entrepreneur Oleg Nevzorov and his development firm, KYB Corporation, which was based in Odesa in Ukraine, and in Varna since 2022, the year Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began.
In 2025, Bulgaria’s National Security Agency accused Nevzorov of laundering money through the construction industry and ordered him to leave the country. But the measure was then revoked.
