Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov was declared of suspicion in the corruption case at the Ministry of Regional Development

The Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov, who currently heads the Ministry of National Unity, has been suspected in a corruption case at the Ministry of Regional Development.

This was reported by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU).

NABU does not name Chernyshovʼs name, but from the details of the case it is clear that it is about him.

He was charged with abuse of office and receiving a bribe in an especially large amount. He is the sixth suspect in the case.

Chernyshov himself reported that he had a "constructive dialogue with the NABU detectives" that lasted over two hours.

"I am grateful for the correct and respectful attitude. I assured that this approach is mutual and confirmed my readiness for full cooperation in the legal sphere. I am reviewing all the documents provided," he noted.

What is the matter?

According to the investigation, one of the capitalʼs developers developed a scheme to illegally acquire land in Kyiv for a residential complex. To do this, he turned to Chernyshov, who at that time headed the Ministry of Community and Territorial Development, and a number of other high-ranking officials of the department, who helped transfer this plot to one of the state-owned enterprises. And this enterprise 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.

As in case 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.

Law enforcement officers do not name the names of those involved in the case, but Babelʼs sources confirmed that they are. In particular, Vasyl Volodin (member of the board of “Naftogaz of Ukraine”) and Maksym Horbatyuk (former adviser to the minister).

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