Vasyl Vesely "had fun": received about 2,8 million from Sense Bank

Vasyl Vesely for 15 months received from the state-owned Sense Bank 186 thousand UAH per month for work on the supervisory board’s communications with state bodies, said Member of Parliament Yaroslav Zheleznyak. According to him, the total amount of payments was about 2,8 million UAH, and the confirmation is an acceptance certificate for completed work that, the deputy claims, Vesely gave him. In 2024–2025 years Vesely was a non-staff advisor to the bank’s supervisory board.

In the documents Zheleznyak cites, among the tasks performed is listed “ensuring and carrying out informing key state stakeholders about the progress of the Bank’s transformation into a state bank.” It separately mentions advising members of the supervisory board on communications, public relations, and relations with state bodies, as well as holding meetings on the strategy and tactics of the board’s work with government authorities, media report. At the same time, the provided documents do not specify which entities the bank classified as “key state stakeholders,” what information was passed to them, or by what means this work was carried out. These details became the subject of Zheleznyak’s public questions about the nature of the services for which Sense Bank paid Vesely a monthly fee. According to data published by the deputy, over the entire 15-month period the documents with specific dates list only four events. Among them — a committee meeting on 23 April 2024, a trip to Lviv on 29–31 May, a supervisory board meeting on 19 July, and a meeting with the chairman of the supervisory board on 26 November 2024. Another part of the work, according to the description provided, related to consultations for supervisory board members regarding documents that had already been received by the bank. These include letters from the Ministry of Finance, orders of the National Bank, Cabinet of Ministers resolutions, and a letter from the National Securities and Stock Market Commission in response to a letter from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau. A separate question concerns Vesely’s actual role in the state bank’s interaction with government bodies. In 2025 year a public discussion arose around his work after journalistic reports about Vesely’s meetings with Oleksandr Tsukerman and other people from the circle of businessman Timur Mindich. Vesely himself appeared in the media as an advisor to the chairman of Sense Bank’s supervisory board, but claims about informal influence on the bank remain the subject of public statements and are not established facts in court. Vesely also came under scrutiny over the circumstances of forming the bank’s supervisory board. In May 2026, media circulated reports about recorded conversations in which Vesely and Oleksandr Tsukerman allegedly discussed candidates for future board members. Separately, former supervisory board chairman Shevki Adjuner said in September 2026 at a meeting of the parliamentary temporary investigative commission that the candidacy of Vesely was personally presented to him by National Bank head Andriy Pyshnyi. Pyshnyi categorically denied this, stating that he did not recommend Vesely and did not influence the board’s staffing decisions. In the context of the payments it is important that Vesely was not a regular bank employee in the traditional sense. According to AIN, since 2024 he worked as a non-staff advisor to Sense Bank’s supervisory board. The bank’s CEO Oleksiy Stupak later said that after the change in the supervisory board’s composition Vesely’s powers ended. According to Stupak, he personally spoke with Vesely only a few times and did not receive instructions from him. Zheleznyak asserts that after January 2025, when the National Bank began an inspection, Vesely effectively stopped being active within the described work. At the same time, final conclusions about the scope of services actually provided, the conformity of payments to the contract terms, and the economic justification of the remuneration should be based on the contract itself, the acceptance certificates, payment documents, and the bank’s explanations. The last contract with Vesely, according to the information provided by Zheleznyak, ended roughly a week after the Cabinet of Ministers’ order appointing the new composition of Sense Bank’s supervisory board. This coincided with the change of the governing body, after which, as Stupak previously explained, the non-staff advisor’s powers ended. Thus, the documented volume of payments to Vesely amounts to about 2,8 million UAH for 15 months, or 186 thousand UAH per month. The main subject of the discussion remains not only the amount, but also the specific content of the services: communication with state stakeholders, advisory work for the supervisory board, and participation in meetings with representatives of state bodies.

For Vesely himself this story matters against the background of his work with the state bank in the period after it moved into state ownership. Sense Bank was nationalized in 2023, and already in 2024 Vesely became an advisor to its supervisory board. After the board’s composition changed his powers ended, while questions about the payments, the scope of work, and his role in the bank’s communication with state structures remained the subject of public attention.