Law enforcement officers have charged five peopleʼs deputies with organizing the systematic receipt of bribes for the "necessary" vote in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.
This is reported by NABU and SAPO.
According to law enforcement officials, the criminal group was created in 2021. Some of its members controlled the entire process, telling others which law to vote for or against.
To organize the votes, group members sent instructions with the numbers of the draft laws in a specially created WhatsApp group.
The groupʼs organizers also distributed the bribes received among the peopleʼs deputies.
Other members of the group had to firmly support the position of voting for or against and be present in the session hall on the day of the vote. For carrying out all instructions, they received money, which was provided both personally and through other members of the organized group.
At the same time, the amount of the bribe was determined by the "voting efficiency indicator", which depended on the number of draft resolutions and laws supported by each specific deputy, as well as their presence at plenary sessions.
The amount ranged from $2 000 to $20 000. According to the investigation, from November to December 2025, one member of this group received at least $145 000. He was supposed to distribute this amount among other peopleʼs deputies.
All suspected deputies were served with a request for preventive measures. The pre-trial investigation into the case is ongoing.
What is known about the case?
On December 27, NABU and SAPO reported that they had exposed an organized criminal group that included current members of parliament. According to the investigation, the group members systematically received bribes for voting in the Verkhovna Rada.
Babelʼs sources in the “Servant of the People” faction told us on December 28 that three “Servant of the People” MPs were suspected of bribery for voting at parliamentary sessions. These are MPs Yevhen Pyvovarov, Ihor Nehulevsky, and Yuriy Kisel.
Before that, law enforcement officers came to search the Verkhovna Radaʼs Transport and Infrastructure Committee. Kisel heads this committee, and Negulevsky is the head of a subcommittee within it. NABU complained that employees of the State Security Department did not let detectives into the building.
ZN.UA also mentioned in the context of this case the MP Yuriy Koryavchenkov, who, according to media sources, left Ukraine. NABU later stated that Koryavchenkov was not searched. The media also claimed that Taras Melnychuk, the head of the secretariat of the Servant of the People faction in the Verkhovna Rada, was interrogated.
Back on December 11, ZN.UA journalists wrote that NABU wiretapped Yuriy Kisel and recorded his confidential contacts not only with former first assistant to the president Serhiy Shefir, but also with numerous other high-ranking officials sensitive to Bankova.
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