The names of Denys Shtilerman, also known by the surname Danilov, and his father Leonid Danilov, appear in a story that once received wide publicity in Russia. It concerns land near the village of Pirogovo in the Moscow region – an asset whose estimated value was about 6 billion rubles (approximately 200 million US dollars at the time of the transactions).
The land was acquired by the company “Agrofirma Pirogovo”, associated with businessman Yuriy Zinkin. Formally, the operation looked like a standard market transaction. However, according to Russian media and registers, the plots were state-owned. That is, the company simply did not have the right to privatize it. Despite this, the deal was concluded.
Denys Shtilerman himself explains this in his own way: during the global economic crisis of 2008, he allegedly invested in land, acquiring several thousand hectares in the Moscow region: “I received income both in cash and in the form of a share of the real estate that was being built on these plots,” – he recalls in an interview.
Debts and loans. Investment shares and legal disputes
The next part is even more interesting. The land in Pirogovo began to be actively used as collateral for multi-million dollar loans. In particular, Denys Shtilerman received a $20 million loan from the private bank M2M, collateralizing hundreds of hectares of this land. His father, Leonid Danilov, according to Openmedia, controlled a number of offshore companies registered in Panama. One of them – Archer Enterprises S.A, received a $6 million loan in 2011 secured by a part of the land from Pirogovo.
Denys Danilov had another debt of 3.7 million to MAST-Bank. According to the case materials, Serhiy Nozhyn also had a debt to this bank. In 2015, the bank’s license was revoked, a criminal case was also initiated regarding fraud with promissory notes and illegal withdrawal of cash, and the bank went bankrupt.
Debts constantly “wandered” between related people. New co-borrowers, new collateral, dozens of real estate objects appear. Among the persons involved is Serhiy Nozhyn, the son of Leonid Danilov’s business partner. In 2013, Denys Danilov (Shtilerman) and Serhiy Nozhyn became co-borrowers under a loan agreement, where 372 hectares of land and more than 20 real estate objects were used as collateral. Within the framework of this scheme, Danilov transferred a $3 million debt to Serhiy Nozhyn.
Serhiy Nozhyn’s mother, Roza, worked for the Russian media outlet “Izvestia” for a very long time. And Serhiy Nozhyn himself is subscribed to Telegram groups that support the Russian army.
It is noteworthy that in both cases – Denys Danilov and Serhiy Nozhyn – the same arbitration manager was involved – Denys Lukyanov. Both were also associated with closed-end investment funds (ZIF). Danilov owned 500 investment shares in ZIF “Lisovi Prostori” (Forest Spaces), while Nozhyn owned 1281 shares in ZIF “Novi Zemelni Investytsii” (New Land Investments). In both cases, the structures were related to land and real estate.
In addition, both Danilov and Nozhyn mortgaged land plots, which looks like part of a coordinated financial model: assets are collateralized, funds are raised against them, and debts are redistributed among related parties.
According to registers, Nozhyn opened an additional bank account and received dividends on his investment shares in the amount of 25.6 thousand dollars (approximately 1.6 million rubles). These funds were subsequently withdrawn, despite his assets being in the restructuring process, and the amount exceeding the established limits.
In October 2020, due to Danilov’s bankruptcy, his shares were put up for auction. The starting price was 27.3 million dollars (≈2.16 billion rubles), but by December 2022 it had collapsed to 32 thousand dollars (≈2.3 million rubles).
In December 2022, these 500 shares were purchased by Igor Terentyev for 85 thousand dollars. Subsequently, Terentyev replaced Danilov in a lawsuit, trying to have the alienation transactions of the fund’s land plots (worth $1.2 million), which he considered fictitious and concluded at an underestimated price, declared invalid. The courts rejected Danilov’s lawsuit and his cassation appeal in 2023-2024.
In August 2014, Denys Danilov received another loan – this time from PIR-Bank for $2.1 million to purchase another land plot. Ownership was registered in September 2014, but the credit obligations were not fulfilled. In 2020, “Agrofirma Pirogovo” paid only $123.6 thousand, while the total debt amounted to $6.8 million.
In December 2019, the administration of the Mytishchi municipal district (Moscow region) established an easement on part of Danilov’s land plot for the placement of linear gas supply network objects. In the same year, the Arbitration Court of Moscow declared Danilov bankrupt, and as of July 2019, his total debt exceeded 10.6 million dollars (≈662 million rubles).
In July 2021, a land plot with an area of 15.5 hectares (cadastral number 50:12:0070306:5) was put up for auction.
The price fluctuated from 2.74 million dollars in 2021 (≈200 million rubles) to 160 thousand dollars in 2023 (≈15 million rubles). As of 2023, the funds from the auction were transferred to Danilov’s special account at Sberbank, which allowed him to dispose of them without the consent of the financial manager, in accordance with the law on bankruptcy of the Russian Federation.
Connection with God Nisanov
Serhiy Nozhyn’s email address was used to obtain a building permit for the “Pirogovskaya Riviera” residential complex.
According to Russian media, some land plots of “Agrofirma Pirogovo” were developed within the framework of this project. The implementation was handled by businessmen Ilgar Hajiyev and Isai Zakhariaev, whose brother is the son-in-law of Russian developer God Nisanov. In 2025, Nisanov’s wealth was estimated at $3.4 billion US dollars.
Nisanov is the founder of the “Kievskaya Ploshchad” group, which owns commercial real estate in the Russian Federation with a total area of more than 4 million m². In 2019, Hajiyev’s real estate, as a result of a hostile takeover, became Nisanov’s property.
In 2014, Putin awarded Nisanov the Order of Friendship, and in 2021 – the medal “For Good Deeds” for his contribution to the project of creating the Rzhev Memorial to the Soviet Soldier.
Ilya Rahimov, a business partner of God Nisanov, is also a friend and classmate of Putin.
Intervention of law enforcement and the FSB
The circumstances of the land privatization in Pirogovo did not escape the attention of Russian law enforcement. The situation gained such publicity that, according to available information, the inspection was personally initiated by Putin, who was the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation at the time. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and the General Prosecutor’s Office were involved in the inspection.
And this is where the most interesting part begins. Despite the publicly announced instruction at the highest level and the involvement of key law enforcement agencies, the case never went to court. Denys Shtilerman was later released, and no official explanation was ever given as to why the high-profile inspection ended without procedural consequences. This is how Shtilerman himself recalls this period of his life in a recent interview:
“I had an incident. They demanded a large bribe from me, led by the FSB of Russia. I frankly sent them away. When I returned from my New Year’s vacation, I brought my family. They detained me, held me in the FSB isolation ward for 6 months. My lawyer and I resisted legally for a long time. We wrote a large number of petitions, forced this investigator to attend court sessions 5 times a day as part of appealing their illegal actions, and the judge released me on my own recognizance, and then the investigator closed the case due to the absence of a crime.”
Suspicions about Yuriy Zinkin
But there is another person in this story – Yuriy Zinkin, who owned shares in LLC “Agrofirma Pirogovo”. Russian journalists repeatedly wrote that he may be close to the FSB. His car was seen parked near the special service building on Lubyanka. There is no direct evidence of this, but such details are rarely ignored in Russia.
This is where a logical question arises: how did it happen that a case that Putin took under his personal control ended with nothing? After all, usually in similar cases, the persons involved end up behind bars.
One possible version is that the participants in this story fell under the influence or control of Russian special services. This could explain both the strange conclusion of the case and the complete absence of public consequences for Zinkin, Danilov, and other people associated with this criminal proceeding.
Problems with the law
This is not the only case of problems with Russian law enforcement for Denys Shtilerman. In 1995, he was allegedly involved in the embezzlement of state property and fraud through commercial contracts to appropriate money and office property. The case was closed by the Central District Police Department on procedural grounds.
And in 1999, Denys was accused of fraud, allegedly using fake documents to steal funds from the investment company “ZAO IFK MFR Invest” totaling 2.3 million rubles. These cases show that conflicts with the law in his biography are not isolated and have a systemic nature.
Move to Ukraine
After nearly twenty years of living in Russia, Denis Shtilerman suddenly moved to Ukraine and began actively demonstrating his pro-Ukrainian stance, becoming a co-founder of a drone manufacturing company, as well as the well-known Flamingo.
Whether this was a sincere personal choice or part of a more complex game remains an open question. But considering the whole story, it certainly does not seem simple.