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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
Chernivtsi are called a little Vienna — for the Austro-Hungarian architecture, tidy facades, and the reputation as one of the safest rear-area cities in the country. It was here that new capital and hundreds of displaced people arrived during the war. And along with the money came a risk familiar to Ukrainian provinces: when city authorities stop distinguishing between the community’s interest and the interest of people close to them. In recent years the Chernivtsi city council has regularly been rocked by SBU and BEB searches, and a number of top officials have already come under suspicion. That, however, has not shaken the position of Mayor Roman Klychuk.
StopKor compiled investigations by “Stop Corruption TV” over the past year and traced how, in the same period, one scheme repeated itself in different ways but with the same result: communal resources and budget money gravitate toward a narrow circle of people connected to the mayor, while those outside that circle spend years fighting for their rights in court.
An auction for one hryvnia that the city hall lost for three years
In June 2022 the Chernivtsi Department of Communal Property put up for auction the lease of a nonresidential premises on Stepan Bandera Street, 5 — in the very city center. Participant Nataliya Vargotska offered a price one hryvnia higher than her competitor, but she did not submit the required documents: neither an application to participate nor papers on state registration. The Department unanimously disqualified her, and the lease right lawfully passed to the second participant — sole proprietor Larysa Nahorniak.
More details — in Mariya Vynnychenko’s investigation for “Stop Corruption TV.”
This story should have ended there. Instead it only began — and not for the winner, but against her. Instead of preparing the acceptance-transfer act and handing over the keys, the city hall began suing its own lessee, with whom it had just concluded a contract.
The formal pretext was Vargotska’s complaint to the Ministry of Economy, which found the disqualification unlawful — relying on general provisions of the law, while the practice of imposing additional requirements at local auctions in communities is common. Vargotska’s lawyer, Yana Kodryan, insists that the status of sole proprietor is not a mandatory condition for participation. Nahorniak’s lawyer, Vlada Bartusevich, objects: the community is interested in the maximum rental payment, which only a business entity can provide — and the standard lease agreement in Chernivtsi was developed over years precisely for that purpose.
Which lawyer is right is a question for the court. What happened next, however, has nothing to do with legal logic. The administrative court ruled: the Department’s orders cannot be canceled, the contract with Nahorniak has already been signed. That did not affect the city council. At that moment the deputy head of the Department, Tetyana Shepelko, was fired — a woman who publicly stated that the mayor personally demanded she prepare the cancellation of the auction results. “This is impossible because it is a violation of the law on the lease of state and communal property,” she explained as the reason for her refusal.
Soon after her dismissal the city council still adopted the required decision. Then followed three years of litigation up to the Supreme Court, where city hall representatives still could not explain to the judges whose lawful interest they were defending, insisting on an abstract “right of the community’s ownership” while at the same time admitting that no one had violated that right. “So who benefited from this? Do you call this normal governance?” one judge could not help but ask.
Nahorniak received the keys only on 1 August 2025 — three years after the auction. The price of the delay, journalists’ calculations show: 2 million hryvnias of unreceived rent, not counting court costs and indexation. “The city council did not defend the community’s interests. It did not defend the interests of the lessee with whom it itself had concluded a contract. It defended the interests of a person it had itself disqualified,” Bartusevich sums up.
But this is not the end: following another suit by Vargotska, the court again declared the contract invalid, and the city hall is already demanding that its own lessee vacate the premises — although the eviction order contains not a single word about eviction. A new case on Nahorniak’s losses, which have reached 1,5 million hryvnias, is now before the commercial court. And city council representative Maksym Filip avoided answering journalists’ direct question about on what grounds the city hall still considers the disqualified participant the winner.
The explanation for such persistence may lie not in the legal sphere but in personnel: among the new leadership of the Department of Communal Property is deputy head Oksana Bilous, who before public service headed the legal department of ROMA LLC, a key company of the mayor’s business group. “If a person has worked at a minimum and has some experience, and she moves higher and higher,” Klychuk commented.
Drones at inflated prices: a tender written for a single winner
While the city council spent three years litigating over one premise, the same executive committee under Klychuk’s signature was conducting other procurements — this time with state money for defense. From October to November 2023 the executive committee concluded five contracts worth over eight million hryvnias for quadcopters, and in all five — the same supplier: Holovna Manufaktura LLC, a company with authorized capital of one thousand hryvnias, registered for sewing workwear.
More details — in Artem Mazur’s report for “Stop Corruption TV.”
The secret of constant victories was in the tender documentation itself: the conditions required ISO certificates covering specific KVED codes that, at the time of the tenders, in principle only one market participant held. The same one. When a competitor, Trading House Terra Group LLC, nevertheless submitted an offer for 1 723 500 hryvnias — cheaper by 144 thousand — the customer chose the more expensive bid. A judicial expert later calculated the exact price of that choice: 1 341 665,91 hryvnias of budget funds unjustifiably paid. This is not a journalistic estimate — it is the conclusion of an official expert examination.
A company that was sewing gowns and aprons as recently as 2022 grew its revenue in one year by almost 1800 percent — without its own drone production and without documented service capacities. Until July 2024, while investigators were actively interested in its contracts, the company’s owner was Ihor Seleznyov. 12 July 2024, precisely when investigations were gaining momentum, he exited the business — a share was bought by a Turkish citizen. A timing coincidence that is hard to chalk up to chance.
The scheme turned out not to be limited to Chernivtsi: in Berdyansk overpayment per unit of equipment exceeded 63 thousand hryvnias, in Kryvyi Rih an investigative judge authorized a search of the executive committee, and in Novomoskovsk in Dnipropetrovsk region the same trick of rejecting a cheaper proposal was repeated.
On 30 January 2026 the head of the city council’s procurement department, Bohdana Zalishchuk, was notified of suspicion of official negligence, abuse of power and seizure of property by abuse of official position — the court found the suspicion substantiated. The involvement of the mayor himself is still being established by investigators. But the mayor’s signature is on all five contracts, not someone else’s. On 16 December 2025 “Holovna Manufaktura” was officially added to the AMCU blacklist. Commenting on the wave of suspicions against officials, Klychuk said: “An official and a businessman is not automatically a thief. To scatter suspicions left and right is unethical.” No one, however, is talking about automatism. A signature on a contract is not a coincidence of circumstances, it is a document.
The mayor’s business, which officially has no relation to the mayor
Both stories — about the lease and about drones — converge on one figure. Roman Klychuk has headed Chernivtsi since 2020, with two decades of business experience behind him. The law explicitly prohibits a mayor from combining the office with entrepreneurship, and the mayor officially says he has transferred companies to management. Registers, however, say otherwise: Klychuk is still listed as the ultimate beneficiary of several large firms.
ROMA LLC was the largest taxpayer in Chernivtsi in 2024 and 2025; the company owns a Land Rover Velar that, journalists report, is used by the mayor’s wife. Taistra Group, formally owned by his son Bohdan Klychuk, is also among the city’s top taxpayers and is a subsidiary of Goyra Group, where among the beneficiaries Roman Klychuk again appears — although officially that company is engaged only in restaurant business and catering, yet somehow has a Jaguar among its assets. According to media estimates, Taistra doubled its revenue to 2,6 billion hryvnias in 2024 — precisely when the city council could not transfer a premises for three years and featured in the drone overpayment case.
“Honestly, I was not preparing to transfer the business, so now I am exclusively discussing with lawyers how to do it,” the mayor himself admitted during the election campaign. Years later the question of “how” still has not received a public answer.
Overall the Klychuk family controls from 40 to 100% of shares in three companies, the declared value of these assets exceeds 77 million hryvnias. The declaration for 2025 lists over 24 million hryvnias in cash, a house of more than 500 square meters, Jaguar and Mercedes-Benz cars, an expensive watch, and earlier — a yacht worth about 7 million hryvnias. The documents also mention his niece Bozhena Klychuk-Petrenko, who as early as 2018 bought property worth 7 million hryvnias. These discrepancies prompted journalists to ask the NAPC for a check.
Separately, the Chernivtsi prosecutor’s office opened a case on overpayments for road repairs of 3,5 million hryvnias — city road tenders had previously been criticized for inflated material prices. And journalists were unable to get comments from the mayor himself about all of the above: inquiries were answered with “on vacation,” then “on a business trip,” and ultimately with a direct refusal to communicate.
Market, restaurant and terrace on an accelerated schedule
The last detail of this picture is the fate of the former director of Kalynevy Market, Oleh Hulpak, appointed to the post in 2021. Before that he ran the Zorka store chain (Gastronom 148 LLC). On the site of one of the chain’s most popular stores today are the Shosho restaurant and the Taistra shop — both belong to the mayor’s group of companies. In 2024 the city council leased the land in front of these establishments, and already in March 2026 the owners received permission for reconstruction — and a summer terrace opened in place of the former store.
Continuation: the court obliged the community to pay for the city hall’s mistakes
StopKor reported this in a resonant investigation at the end of July — now there is a resolution to the financial part of the case. On 30 July 2026 the Commercial Court of Chernivtsi region in case No. 926/1135/26 partially satisfied Larysa Nahorniak’s claim against the Department of Communal Property. From the community budget the following was recovered in her favor:
164 161,74 UAH — consequences of the invalidity of the transaction;
917 632,73 UAH — property damage (losses);
100 000 UAH — moral damages;
14 181,30 UAH — court fee.
Together — over 1,19 million UAH, which the community budget will now pay for the Department’s mistakes and delays. This is in addition to the 2 million hryvnias of rent not received already calculated by journalists — meaning the price of the city council’s three-year legal stubbornness exceeded 3 million hryvnias and continues to grow.
In place of a conclusion
Different episodes by nature — the court dispute over a premises, the public procurement of drones, the mayor’s family’s property status, the former market story — rest on the same logic. Where a decision benefits insiders, it is made quickly and without unnecessary questions. Where a quick decision would mean a loss of profit for “their own,” the procedure is stretched over years of lawsuits, dismissals of principled officials, and silence in response to direct journalists’ questions. This is not about isolated poor decisions by officials. This is about a system in which the mayor’s private interest and the public interest of the community have long since swapped places.
Also read: the millionaire mayor: how Roman Klychuk combines power in Chernivtsi and the family business?
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Аукціон, тендер, декларація: СтопКор простежив, як Чернівці роками працюють на бізнес мера". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: NARDEP 24.
