A camouflaged vehicle for transporting deceased Ukrainian soldiers was driving ahead of the car in which former Kyiv City Council (KCC) member Denys Komarnytskyi illegally traveled abroad. This was a “cover” so that Komarnytskyi’s motorcade would not be stopped at checkpoints.
This is stated in the investigation of "Ukrainska Pravda" (UP).
Journalists cite sources in law enforcement agencies who interrogated Komarnytskyiʼs comrade Yuriy Dovhalenko. He was one of those who helped the ex-deputy escape. Four people with identification cards from the Security Service of Ukraine, two employees of the Department of Strategic Investigations of the Transcarpathian region, and one local deputy took part in this.
Komarnytskyi was put on the wanted list on February 10, 2025 — he is suspected of organizing a land grab scheme in the center of Kyiv. And already on the morning of February 11, according to “Ukrainska Pravda”, his assistants came for Komarnytskyi in two Toyota Land Cruiser cars with cover plates that are not in the police database. The ex-deputy was taken from a cottage town near Kyiv, and the motorcade set off for the west of the country.
Ahead of the motorcade, at a distance of 30 km, was a camouflaged car with the plate "200" — such cars are used to transport the bodies of deceased Ukrainian soldiers.
This camouflaged car was supposed to be a reinsurance policy, scouting the situation on Komarnytskyiʼs escape route: whether cars were being stopped at checkpoints, whether cars were being inspected in search of Komarnytskyi, who was already wanted at that time.
Near the city of Khust (Transcarpathian region), they were joined by two employees of the Strategic Investigations Department.
Komarnytskyi was also indignant that he had stayed in a “homeless hotel with bad internet”. A few days after his stay in Khust, he went to Uzhhorod, where he stayed with a deputy of the Transcarpathian regional council, the investigation claims. And on February 16, Komarnytskyi went to the border police station in Romania, where he asked for asylum.
Three employees of the Strategic Investigations Department of the National Police, involved in the smuggling of Komarnytskyi abroad, were dismissed. Two of them were declared suspects.
In a comment to Babel, SBU denied that its regular employees helped former Kyiv City Council member Denys Komarnytskyi cross the border. The detained officials had the status of public freelancers for less than 5 months — that is, they were not on the staff of the special service and did not receive money. SBU emphasizes that the detainees were deprived of this status in early February 2025 — that is, before Komarnytskyi was put on the wanted list and he left abroad.
Investigators are now identifying everyone involved in Komarnytskyiʼs smuggling abroad. In total, since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion, SBU has uncovered 215 schemes for illegal border crossing, and 1 869 people have been reported suspicious.
In early February, law enforcement officers exposed a criminal organization led by former Kyiv City Council deputy Denys Komarnytskyi. He was the leader of the “Leonid Chernovetskyi Bloc” faction in the Kyiv City Council from 2008 to 2010.
Other suspects include:
- Deputy Head of the Kyiv City State Administration (KCSA);
- Chairman and member of the KCC Standing Commission on Architecture, Urban Planning and Land Relations;
- current deputies of the KCC;
- First Deputy and Deputy Director of Municipal Enterprises;
- four citizens whose positions are not reported by law enforcement agencies.
The defendants are suspected of seizing valuable land in the capital for development and fully influencing the local authoritiesʼ decisions on granting land rights. The scheme consisted of the defendants looking for promising land plots and registering ownership rights to non-existent houses on these territories for fake people. Then they submitted applications to the City Council to grant them ownership rights to land plots for servicing these structures — this way they avoided bidding.
According to the investigation, during 2023-2024, the defendants illegally removed land in the city center worth 11.6 million hryvnias from the property of the territorial community of Kyiv.
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