The Ukrainian refugee who broke up the family of a British multimillionaire changed her name and got divorced

A Ukrainian refugee who began an affair with the former boss of credit company Wonga, a British multimillionaire, after fleeing to the UK from Independence to live in his £3million family home is still living with him a year later. And now she divorced her husband in Kyiv

Maria Polonchuk, 40, has been in a relationship with investor and dot-com entrepreneur Haakon Overly, 53, since he left his wife for her last year.

As he writes Daily Mailher husband Andrei Sheldunov, who still lives in Kyiv, received a “quick” divorce from her shortly after their relationship became public.

Polonchuk and Norwegian-born Haakon Overly met after she and her sons were given visas to stay at his £3m home in Surrey to flee Ukraine following the outbreak of conflict there with Russia.

In early September last year, MailOnline reported that the couple had moved out of his family home, leaving his wife Imogen, 47, and their school-age children.

Maria Polonchuk has now become a businesswoman in the UK, calls herself Masha Epstein and is the co-founder of a design business called Lon: Ltd with her 19-year-old son Grigory, writes the Daily Mail.

The company in question was created in November last year with an office in London’s Covent Garden, with Polonchuk listed as the sole director and co-owner along with her son.

She describes herself on her social media profile, using the name Masha Efstein, as an “award-winning designer and entrepreneur” from the UK and “an experienced executive with over 15 years of entrepreneurial experience.”

It goes on to say, “Over the years, I have gained significant diverse experience in various business fields such as design, engineering, construction, catering, publishing, interior design and advertising. Passionate about design and technology.”

The Ukrainian woman proudly shows off her company’s new product, a multi-connection outlet adapter hub for electronic devices designed to eliminate cable clutter around office desks.

In a video promoting the product, she introduces herself as a “Ukrainian entrepreneur” who “had to leave my country with my two sons and we ended up in the UK.”

On October 16, she posted a congratulatory message praising her son after their product he helped design won the concept award at this year’s Red Dot Design Award.

Haakon Overly, who was the boss of controversial payday loan firm Wonga before it collapsed in 2018, has posted a series of messages on his social media profile praising his new partner.

Earlier, as the Daily Mail writes, Maria Polonchuk posed for modeling shots for her photographer husband Andrei Sheldunov, who called her Manya or Masha in captions on social networks when they had happier times. The former couple, who married in Kharkov in 2003, apparently lived comfortably, vacationed abroad and once wrote a Ukrainian cookbook together. They were also co-directors of the Kyiv company Kontakt Media from 2006 to June last year.

Court records in Ukraine show that Sheldunov filed for divorce in the Kievsky District Court of Kharkov on September 19 last year – just two weeks after his wife’s affair became known, the Daily Mail notes. Nine days earlier, on September 10, she wrote a statement in which she stated that she “does not object to the dissolution of the marriage.”

Haakon Overley has repeatedly tweeted his support for bringing Ukrainian refugees to the UK since the conflict began in February last year.

Former health minister and local MP Jeremy Hunt tweeted a photo of Overley, his family and Maria Polonchuk at a local event last year. Hunt noted at the time: “It was great to meet a Ukrainian woman who was taken in by a local family… There is nothing more English than a village festival to welcome them.”

Overley, who studied mathematics at the University of Oslo and also received an economics degree from Durham University, made his money in the early years of the dot-com boom by founding online brokerage Self Trade in 1997. The company was floated in April 2000 and sold in October that year for more than £900 million ($1.1 billion).

The millionaire’s Wonga firm has been heavily criticized by politicians including Labor Party leader Ed Miliband as a prime example of “predatory lending”.

Overley later co-founded Dawn Capital, which describes itself as Europe’s largest specialist business software investor.