“My mother-in-law gave me 100 thousand dollars”: the VKKS panel believed the judge who explained expensive purchases as...

“My mother-in-law gave me 100 thousand dollars”: the VKKS panel believed the judge who explained expensive purchases as a gift from relatives

Panel No.2 of the High Qualification Commission of Judges, based on the interview results, found Darnytskyi District Court judge Olena Rudyk capable of administering justice in the Kyiv Court of Appeal.

We addressed the VKKS panel composed of Liudmyla Volkova, Roman Kydysiuk, and Ruslan Sydorovych with a whole list of questions about the judge, but most of them were ignored. Or deemed immaterial.

For example, the VKKS saw nothing wrong with the fact that Rudyk’s husband’s parents traveled to the Russian Federation several times after 2014 year.

📌 And more about relatives. In 2022 year the judge’s husband bought a plot of land in Sofiivska Borshchahivka near Kyiv for 2,12 million UAH and a Mitsubishi Outlander for almost 1 million UAH.

Where did the money come from? Relatives gave it as a gift. Literally: the husband stated that he received a gift from his mother in the amount of 100 thousand dollars, which at that time was 3,65 million UAH.

At the same time there is no document about the transfer of the money. The judge wants everyone to take this on her word. And they also believed that the judge’s in‑laws actually had these funds.

When asked to confirm the relatives’ ability to make such gifts, the judge replied that "they are involved in business and are well-known businessmen in the city," but she provided no documents of their income.

We add that in the declarations for 2015–2021 years there were nowhere near gifts of that scale. And suddenly they appeared here, closing the question of acquiring property worth over 3 million UAH.

📌 That’s not all. In 2023 year the judge declared an expense of over 300 thousand UAH as partial payment for her husband’s Lexus, but for some reason did not report a change in asset status.

At the same time she stated that she has no corruption‑related violations. Although failing to file a notice about changes in asset status raises questions about the truthfulness of that claim.

But Sydorovych and co., as usual, conducted no substantive verification of these claims, and in the end Rudyk has a high chance of obtaining a judge position at the Kyiv Court of Appeal.

It seems the criterion is simple here: if you really want something, you can call anything "immaterial," and whatever is inconvenient to check is simply not checked.