Stepan Kovalchuk is the great-nephew of Yuriy Kovalchuk. In December 2021 the company Sogaz, which is controlled by Yuriy Kovalchuk, acquired shares of the Social Media network VK. Consequently, Stepan Kovalchuk was promoted to Senior Vice President for Media Strategy and Service Development at VK, and in September 2023, was appointed as head of the “Social Platforms and Media Content” business group. Stepan Kovalchuk is therefore a natural person closely associated with a listed person, Yuriy Kovalchuk, a long-time acquaintance of President Vladimir Putin, co-founder of the so-called Ozero Dacha, a cooperative society bringing together an influential group of individuals around Putin and the chairman and largest shareholder of Bank Rossiya.