The flight of the Kyiv “overseer” Komarnytsky to Vienna and millions with Palatny: why the “chief cashier” of the capital’s schemes was left without NABU suspicions

Denys Komarnytsky has been wanted by NABU since 10 February 2025 as a suspected organizer of a criminal organization in case No.52023000000000154 dated 3 April 2023, operation “Clean City.”

According to investigators, since 2019 the group obtained Kyiv land without auctions through “ghost houses,” public toilets and other fictitious real estate: they managed to seize plots worth over 11 million UAH, and the transfer of six more worth 81–83 million was stopped. In 6 February — more than 90 searches, seven detained, ten suspicions. Komarnytsky was not taken into custody.

According to Ukrainska Pravda and the BBC, he was escorted to the border by people with SBU IDs, two officers from the Zakarpattia Criminal Investigation Department and a local deputy; a car in the convoy bore a plate “200.” Later Ukrainska Pravda found Komarnytsky in Vienna. He later received a separate suspicion regarding 12 million UAH in taxes. In January 2026 the “Clean City” investigation was closed, but without extradition from Austria there will be no trial. His palace in Kozyn of about 3100 sq. m at that time remained unseized, and cadres connected to him remained in the Kyiv City State Administration and Kyiv City Council.

This is not Komarnytsky’s first criminal story. In the 2005–2011 case together with Chernovetsky’s son-in-law Denys Suprunenko he was implicated in an attack on lawyer Hrantsev, a suitcase with $20 thousand and a Zolochiv court decision to seize JSC “Knyzhka” — the investigation spoke of an attempt to lift the seizure and re-register the factory. In 2011 the Pechersky Court ordered two months’ detention, but a month later the GPU released him on recognizance; in 2012 the Shevchenkivskyi Court sentenced him to two years probation. In 2017 Bihus linked him to lifting a seizure and selling Klymenko’s properties in Koncha-Zaspa. In 2019 he was already called the person who pushed Vadym Stolar out of the capital’s cash flows. The former leader of Chernovetsky’s faction 2008–2010 years, a lawyer and the capital’s “overseer.” Chernovetsky himself is also abroad and wanted.

But the main question of “Clean City” is Artur Palatny. On recordings he appears as “neighbor,” “G” and “senior partner,” and according to Bihus, Komarnytsky would go two floors down to report. Palatny was searched as part of “Clean City,” but no suspicion was brought against him. Meanwhile in 2021 he already had been searched in a case about alleged protection of illegal trade in metro underpasses: the prosecutor’s office claimed that kiosk dismantling was blocked for regular payments. $250 thousand cash and draft calculations of “who owes whom” were found at his home. The case did not go to court.

In January 2025 the club “Tutsi” surfaced, shares of which are registered to Palatny’s parents Lidiya and Leonid, — in proceedings about night establishments and human trafficking. In December 2024 — lawyer Sukhanov, Odesa “UDAR,” a hotel and a probable $1 million for a land decision near Natalka Park. Palatny is a former MP of the VII–VIII convocations, Klitschko’s godfather, his childhood friend and head of UDAR’s executive committee. Despite the search and $250 thousand, he does not have suspect status in the “Clean City” land case.

Instead, suspicions were brought against people directly from the city vertical: Klitschko’s deputy Petro Olenych, who was responsible for land and urban planning, head of the Kyiv Council land commission Mykhailo Terentiev from UDAR, Marchenko, representatives of Kyivblagoustriy and Spetszhytlofond Mushta and Leonov. On the wiretaps Shariy and Shpachuk promise to be “completely controllable.” Sobol and Bohuslavska are wanted along with Komarnytsky; three of the nine defendants are physically unavailable to VAKS.

Klitschko already acknowledged meetings with Komarnytsky to Ukrainska Pravda in 2021, although he claimed they did not discuss real estate. Later Mykhailo Tkach filmed Klitschko together with Palatny at the christening of the son of Vagif Aliyev. Back in 2019 Andriy Bohdan claimed about $20 million allegedly “in Klitschko’s interests”; after that the mayor himself went to NABU. Klitschko spoke of about 1,5 thousand criminal proceedings against the city authorities and called them commissioned.