The court took another person involved in the corruption scheme involving land for development in Kyiv into custody

The High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) has chosen a preventive measure for a developer, whom the investigation considers the organizer of a corruption scheme in the construction sector.

This was reported by the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutorʼs Office (SAP).

The investigating judge of the Supreme Administrative Court partially supported the position of the SAP prosecutor and chose a preventive measure for the defendant in the form of detention with the alternative of bail in the amount of 100 million hryvnias.

If the suspect posts bail, he will be assigned procedural obligations:

• not to leave Kyiv and the Kyiv region without the permission of the detective, prosecutor, or court;
• to refrain from communicating with other suspects in the case and witnesses;
• to surrender passports for travel abroad; to wear an electronic bracelet.

What preceded

In the case of corruption in the construction sector, suspicions were raised against:

• former State Secretary of the Ministry of Community and Territorial Development of Ukraine, current member of the Board of “Naftogaz of Ukraine”;
• former advisor to the Minister of Community and Territorial Development of Ukraine;
• former director of a state-owned enterprise;
• developer (scheme organizer);
• construction company employee.

The NABU and SAP do not name names, but Babelʼs sources in law enforcement agencies confirmed that they are Vasyl Volodin (member of the board of “Naftogaz of Ukraine”) and Maksym Horbatyuk (former adviser to the minister).

According to the investigation, the developer came up with a scheme to illegally obtain land in Kyiv for the construction of a residential complex. He contacted high-ranking officials from the Ministry of Regional Development, who helped transfer the plot to one of the state-owned enterprises. This enterprise then illegally concluded agreements with the "right" construction company.

Under these contracts, the developer was to transfer a part of the future apartments to the state — depending on the value of the land. In order to give as few apartments as possible, the value of the plot was deliberately lowered by almost five times. The difference between this assessment and the market value exceeded a billion hryvnias. This is the amount by which the state would have received fewer apartments if the contracts had been fulfilled. However, the plot was arrested at the request of the NABU and the SAP.

By way of a thank for the help, the developer sold apartments to high-ranking officials and people associated with them at significant discounts — 1000-8000 hryvnias per square meter, although the real market price of such housing is almost 30 000 hryvnias per square meter. The total amount of ill-gotten gains from this amounted to 16.8 million hryvnias. Some of these apartments were also seized.

For more news and in-depth stories from Ukraine, please follow us on X.