This yearʼs championship of Ukraine in gymnastics became the most expensive sports competition on the territory of Ukraine among those financed by the state budget since the beginning of the full-scale war. The NGL.media project together with the sports portal "Tribune" found out that the majority of the funding was received by a little-known company.
The championship of Ukraine in gymnastics was held on September 28-29 in the Kyiv Sports Palace — for the first time in 45 years. The organization of state-level sports competitions is organized by the state institution "Management of national teams and provision of sports events" under the Ministry of Sport "Ukrsportzabezpechennia". It is this structure that ensures the holding of training sessions and competitions of national teams, pays awards and scholarships to athletes, and also ensures their training.
However, the best Ukrainian gymnasts missed this championship, which significantly reduced the purely sports status of the event. This happened primarily because of the inconvenient date of the domestic championship for the leaders of the national team — at the end of the competitive season and almost immediately after the Olympics. All seven gymnasts who represented Ukraine in Paris, including Olympic silver medalist Ilya Kovtun, are either recovering from injuries or have gone to compete in Europe.
The direct organizer of the championship was the vice-president of the Ukrainian Gymnastics Federation, 61-year-old Stella Zakharova, a former Olympic and world champion. Her name is on all the posters, and the accreditation of athletes and journalists went through her personal website.
According to the data of the “Prozorro” electronic public procurement system, the total budget for the two-day championship is more than 8.5 million hryvnias. At the same time, the hitherto unknown company "Kyiv Media Production" received over UAH 6.6 million. There are no publicly available financial reports of the company, no corporate website, and no social media pages.
The company was registered at the end of 2021, but received its first budget orders only in the fall of 2024. Dozens of different companies are located at the companyʼs legal address (Kyiv, Levandovska St., 3A), but the journalists were unable to find the Kyiv Media Production office there.
The official owner and director of "Kyiv Media Production" is 23-year-old Valeriya Hutorka from Bila Tserkva — it is her signature on all documents. She lives abroad, and was in Belgium on the day of signing the contracts. According to her, although her last name is indicated in the documents, in reality they were signed by another person — "by proxy".
In addition to Kyiv Media Production Valeriy Hutorka owns four more companies — TD Fomalhaut-polimin, Art-Connection, Gudprom and Green Energy Solar (75%). No trace of any of these companies could be found online, and the contact numbers listed in the registers are invalid or no longer in service.
In total, "Ukrsportzabezpechennia" concluded eight agreements with "Kyiv Media Production". Meanwhile, journalists say that the company did not provide part of the services under the contracts — this was confirmed by nine judges of the championship. It is about equipment for judges, the use and maintenance of which cost more than 440 thousand hryvnias. The list included laptops, tablets, video projectors with screens and a server.
The leading trainer of the staff team of the national gymnastics team Oksana Slyusarchuk was named as the "financially and materially responsible person who checks and confirms the completeness and quality of service provision" in the contracts with Kyiv Media Production. She said that the organizer of the championship Stella Zakharova was in charge of finding a company and compiling a list of equipment.
However, Zakharova called the “Tribuna.com” journalistʼs question about relations with Kyiv Media Production a provocation.
In response to the official request of journalists, "Ukrsportzabezpechennia" sent a response to 66 pages of contracts and acts. But the state institution was unable to answer any of the essential questions — how they found Kyiv Media Production, whether other companies were contacted, how the cost was determined, and who was the contact person during the provision of services.
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