Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
Premises for 7,4 million hryvnias instead of an auction: police investigate privatization of property by Kyiv councilor Kostyushko’s company
The Kyiv National Police continue to investigate possible significant undervaluation during the privatization of nonresidential premises with an area of 576 sq. m on Post-Volynska Street, 3 in the Solomianskyi district of Kyiv. In 2020 the owner became LLC “KS Eco”, which collects secondary raw materials and is owned by Kyiv councilor Oleg Kostyushko (UDAR faction, in the collage).
While this company was leasing those premises from the city community, as usual, “inseparable improvements” were allegedly carried out (on paper — major repairs). But, according to law enforcement, their real cost was only 75,8 thousand hryvnias, not 1,8 million as declared and confirmed by the Kyiv City State Administration (KCSA). As a result, the company was able to purchase the asset bypassing a competitive auction for 7,4 million hryvnias. In January 2026 law enforcement handed down a number of suspicions in this case — they were received, among others, by the first deputy director of the Department of Communal Property of the KCSA, Oleg Shmuliar, two property appraisers, as well as the former and current directors of “KS Eco.” The former head of this company is currently wanted internationally.
As KV has learned, city law enforcement continue to examine possible violations of the law during the privatization of nonresidential premises on Post-Volynska Street, 3 (Solomianskyi district), which until 2020 were in the communal ownership of the territorial community of Kyiv.
The relevant investigation is being conducted under criminal proceeding No. 42023102090000175, which was opened by the Solomianskyi Department of the National Police of Kyiv on 14 September 2023. Olga Bezsonova was notified in absentia of suspicion in this case on 15 January 2026. She is the former director of LLC “KS Eco” — the company that purchased the indicated real estate from the city community. The notice was delivered to the sister of this citizen. Olga Bezsonova is officially charged with crimes under part 2 of Art. 233 (illegal privatization of communal property on a large scale) and part 2 of Art. 366 (official forgery that caused serious consequences) of the Criminal Code (CC) of Ukraine.
On 19 March 2026 the Solomianskyi Department of the National Police of Kyiv declared Olga Bezsonova wanted, and a week and a half later, on 31 March, law enforcement issued a resolution to place her on the international wanted list. Back on 21 September 2024 this citizen left Ukraine via the Yahodyn checkpoint heading to the Republic of Poland. Law enforcement believe this person is evading the investigation. According to Olga Bezsonova’s lawyer, the suspect currently resides in Spain. On 9 October 2026 the Solomianskyi District Court, at the request of law enforcement, ordered preventive detention for this citizen — it must be applied within 48 hours from the moment of Olga Bezsonova’s arrest.
What investigators have established
From April 2011 to December 2015, the Department of Communal Property of the KCSA, the municipal enterprise “Kyivzhytlospetsexpluatatsiya” (“KZhSE”) and LLC “Budmaterialy-Vtorresursy” concluded a series of lease agreements for nonresidential premises on Post-Volynska Street, 3 with a total area of 556,6 sq. m for use as an office and for collection and sorting of secondary raw materials and glassware. Later, in 2015–2018, changes were made to those agreements — according to them, the tenant became LLC “KS Eco.” That company had previously been “spun off” from LLC “Budmaterialy-Vtorresursy” — so, very loosely, it can be called the “successor” of the “first” tenant.
During the investigation, law enforcement learned that around August 2018 the then-director of LLC “KS Eco,” Olga Kot, formed a “criminal intent aimed at the illegal privatization of communal property — nonresidential premises with an area of 575,20 sq. m.” According to investigators, the official decided to acquire the property “by entering knowingly false information into privatization documents about carrying out inseparable improvements in order to obtain the right to privatize.” The plan was that LLC “KS Eco” would carry out repairs in these premises for a certain amount, which would allow the company to purchase the real estate without a competitive auction, during which its price would likely have increased.
To this end, in August and September 2018 Olga Kot twice sent letters from LLC “KS Eco” to the Department of Communal Property of the KCSA. According to the National Police, in the first letter the company director listed the inseparable improvements that needed to be performed in the premises on Post-Volynska Street, 3. As law enforcement found, the citizen understood that at the time of the request most of the listed construction and repair works at the site had already been “performed as current repairs during long-term lease use,” and therefore would not actually be carried out by LLC “KS Eco.”
In the second letter the company head petitioned city officials for permission to carry out inseparable improvements to the leased property. Olga Kot provided the department with a description of the planned improvements, an estimate of the costs, information on the advisability of carrying them out, and a copy of the project-estimate documentation for the relevant major repairs. According to the investigation, the consolidated estimate deliberately included materials and types of work that had already effectively been completed at the site.
On 2 November 2018 one of the deputy directors of the Department of Communal Property of the KCSA (who exactly is not specified in court rulings in this case due to the presumption of innocence — KV) approved an appraisal conclusion on the value of the premises at the indicated address — their value amounted to 7,1 million hryvnias. And almost a week later, on 8 November, the first deputy director of the same department (at that time the position was held by Oleg Shmuliar — KV) agreed to the improvements, including inseparable improvements in the amount of 1,8 million hryvnias, as provided by the estimate documentation.
Later, in March 2019 Olga Kot “went on maternity leave,” and acting director of LLC “KS Eco” during her absence became the aforementioned Olga Bezsonova. According to the investigation, Kot colluded with Bezsonova — the latter allegedly was to “continue actions to prepare and use other falsified privatization documents.” In particular, the temporary head of LLC “KS Eco” was to sign a contract for repair works with a contractor, sign acceptance certificates for completed works, extend lease agreements for communal property, and so on.
In July 2019 Olga Bezsonova sent a letter to the Department of Communal Property of the KCSA asking to include the leased premises on Post-Volynska Street, 3 on the list of objects subject to privatization. Meanwhile, by 8 August the parties had “managed” to conclude a new lease agreement for this real estate.
Approximately at the same time, according to investigators, Olga Bezsonova concluded a subcontract with LLC “Resurs Bud” for construction works at the above address. As the National Police established, the agreement was executed “retroactively” — it stated the date 14 February 2017.
A year later, on 23 December 2019, LLC “KS Eco” and LLC “Resurs Bud” signed an acceptance act for completed construction works at the above address for a total of 1,8 million hryvnias. In the period from December of that year to January 2020, “KS Eco” transferred 1,8 million hryvnias to its contractor, and subsequently “Resurs Bud,” according to the investigation, transferred these funds to the accounts of two companies showing signs of fictitious activity. On 26 December 2019 the tenant of the premises on Post-Volynska Street, 3, informed the Department of Communal Property of the KCSA about completion of inseparable improvements. On 28 January 2020 another agreement between LLC “KS Eco” and the Department of Communal Property of the KCSA was signed to extend the lease term for the premises at the indicated address (until August 2029). Then, on 27 February 2020, the Kyiv City Council officially included this communal property in the list of objects subject to privatization.
In March 2020 a private forensic expert (his name is also concealed — KV) produced, at the request of LLC “KS Eco,” an opinion based on a construction-technical study of the premises on Post-Volynska Street, 3. That document recorded information regarding identification and the period of actual execution of the major repairs of these real estate objects. According to the investigation, the information was false, and the expert acted on the basis of “forged privatization documents” (including acceptance certificates for completed works) — “with the aim of obtaining unlawful benefit.”
On 23 October 2020 a contract was concluded between the Department of Communal Property of the city administration and LLC “Valuation Company ‘Misto’” to appraise the nonresidential premises on Post-Volynska Street, 3. Four days later, on 27 October, the appraisal report and conclusion were already sent to the department — according to these documents, the value of the premises was 7,4 million hryvnias (including 1,2 million hryvnias — value added tax). According to the investigation, the appraisers who calculated the value of this real estate assisted the leadership of “KS Eco” in the illegal privatization of the leased communal asset, because they “deliberately did not prepare and submit to the department a negative conclusion indicating the fact that the existing improvements of the leased real estate did not correspond to the supporting documents on the directions and volumes of expenditures for the improvements.”
At the end of that year, on 28 December, the Department of Communal Property of the KCSA and LLC “KS Eco” signed a purchase-sale agreement for the nonresidential premises on Post-Volynska Street, 3. On behalf of the “buyer” it was signed by the aforementioned Olga Kot, who had, in September 2020, just returned from maternity leave, and on behalf of the department — its head Andriy Hudz. The price of the objects, as noted above, amounted to 7,4 million hryvnias.
Subsequently, during January–February 2021 Olga Kot transferred the above funds to the Department of Communal Property of the KCSA. And already during the investigation, according to the results of a court-ordered construction-technical expert examination, law enforcement established that the cost of the inseparable improvements carried out in the premises on Post-Volynska Street, 3, amounted to 75,8 thousand hryvnias. That is, almost 25 times less than what LLC “KS Eco” had declared.
Note that in this case in January 2026 another set of suspicions was handed down — they were received, among others, by the current director of LLC “KS Eco” Olga Kot, the head of LLC “Resurs Bud,” as well as the aforementioned forensic expert (who established, among other things, the period of the repair works), two appraisers and the first deputy director of the Department of Communal Property of the KCSA, Oleg Shmuliar. However, as of today the exact number of “figures” in the proceeding is not known.
Some details
These premises were also linked to another scandal. In February 2018 the Kyiv City Council changed the rental rate for premises used for receiving and sorting garbage: until 2018 it was 5% and the same for everyone, but according to that decision the rental rate for such objects became from 5% to 25% depending on the distance from residential buildings (if less than 200 m — 25%, over 200 m — 5%). Meanwhile, in May 2018 the City Council’s Property Commission, at the request of the Department of Communal Property of the KCSA, allowed LLC “KS Eco” to lease premises on Post-Volynska Street, 3, at an even lower rate of 2,5%.
In September that year a group of entrepreneurs involved in waste sorting appealed to the Kyiv City Council’s Commission on Legality and Anti-Corruption with a complaint that the city council’s decision to “diversify” rental rates for them was discriminatory, and that providing additional preferences to LLC “KS Eco” was illegal.
They noted, in particular, that setting the maximum rental rate for waste sorting premises at 25% was lobbied by interested parties, and the purpose of such a decision was to eliminate small businesses from the capital’s market. In turn, entrepreneurs explained KS Eco’s benefits by the fact that one of the city councilors is connected to it. Complainants emphasized that their requests to reduce the rental rate for their businesses were rejected by the Property Commission.
In October 2018 the City Council’s anti-corruption commission appealed on this matter to the Department for Prevention and Detection of Corruption of the KCSA, the National Agency on Corruption Prevention and the Main Department of the National Police in Kyiv. And in December that year the Kyiv office of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) criticized the city authorities’ actions. The regulator stressed that the rental price for such objects should not depend on their location. AMCU also called unacceptable a situation in which certain business entities, for example LLC “KS Eco,” are granted exclusive privileges by councilors. The City Council was then given a month to correct the violations, but whether this was done could not be determined by KV from open sources.
What is known about the figures involved
According to the analytical system YouControl, Kyiv’s LLC “Budmaterialy-Vtorresursy” was registered in December 1999, and in 2017 the company changed its name to LLC “KS Eco.” Its director is Olga Kot; founders and ultimate beneficiaries are Kyiv residents Serhiy Stepanchuk and Oleg Kostyushko.
The latter is a Kyiv councilor of the VII–IX convocations — he was elected from Solidarity and UDAR. In the previous council term Oleg Kostyushko was secretary of the commission on housing and communal services and the fuel and energy complex (HCS and FEC), which, among other things, deals with secondary resources, and in the current term he is a member of the commission on budget, socio-economic development and investment activity. The Kostyushko family group of companies is associated in YouControl with almost three dozen business entities engaged in real estate, vehicle maintenance and repair, collection of hazardous waste, and so on.
Incidentally, Oleg Kostyushko’s wife Lyudmyla is a deputy of the previous VII and the current VIII convocations of the Zhytomyr Regional Council (elected from the BPP-Solidarity and Proposition parties). She also owns the agricultural company “Zorya,” which grows and processes flax and was created on the basis of a collective farm that covered lands of 4 villages in Zhytomyr region.
It appears that waste management is the Kostyushko family’s main line of business. For example, companies in their orbit LLC “Kramar Recycling” and LLC “Kramar Eco” (the former is co-owned by Oleg’s brother Maksym Kostyushko; the latter is owned by Oleg Kostyushko and Serhiy Stepanchuk) operating in this sector signed more than seven hundred contracts with various state and municipal bodies of Ukraine for such works totaling over 370 million hryvnias. Interestingly, according to some media, several years ago local forums in the Vidradnyi neighborhood, from which Oleg Kostyushko was elected to the City Council, accused local housing maintenance offices of imposing “Kramar-Recycling” services on residents of the private sector.
In previous convocations of the Kyiv City Council, at meetings of the HCS and FEC commission, Oleg Kostyushko several times raised the issue of problems faced by waste removal companies that allegedly receive too little pay for their services. For example, to avoid raising utility tariffs for the population, Kostyushko proposed compensating waste removal companies for part of their fuel costs, which had risen in price. And in 2017 Oleg Kostyushko even considered the possibility of building the first waste-processing plant in Kyiv.
LLC “Resurs Bud” (the declared general contractor for the major repairs of the premises on Post-Volynska Street, 3) was registered in March 2015. Its director, owner and ultimate beneficiary is listed as Serhiy Palamarchuk from the city of Rivne. But a similar-looking suspicion was received by the previous owner and director of that company, Olga Manko — she owned “Resurs Bud” from its registration until 2021.
As KV reported, law enforcement previously drew attention to obvious “manipulations” in the valuation of inseparable improvements in communal objects, which allowed tenants to buy them out at understated prices.
For example, within the framework of the aforementioned criminal proceeding No. 42023102090000175 the National Police are also studying possible violations at the privatization of buildings and tennis courts on Povitroflotskyi Avenue, 63. According to the investigation, the municipal budget lost about 47 million hryvnias due to their incorrect valuation — the documents on the execution of inseparable improvements contained false information about the number of tennis courts built. Recently five people were suspected of committing these offenses. Among them is the same head of the Department of Communal Property of the KCSA, Andriy Hudz (in the collage on the right), and the head of LLC “Umida Invest” (the former tenant and former owner of the property), which apparently was or still is in the orbit of Ihor Kononenko — former MP, business partner and political ally of the 5-era president of Ukraine.
Also, within that same case, law enforcement are investigating similar violations during the privatization of a building on Akademika Hlushkov Avenue, 1, lit. 65. According to the National Police, the value of inseparable improvements that allowed the tenant to acquire it bypassing an auction in the Prozorro.Sales system was “on paper” overstated by 602,6 thousand hryvnias. The court recently imposed an arrest on that property, and it seems likely that “the first suspicions” will be filed soon. Apparently, Kyiv City Councilors from European Solidarity Volodymyr Prokopiv, Lyudmyla Kovalevska and Olga Chaika — who have direct or indirect ties to the charitable organization that rented and later privatized that building, and LLC “Parkpoint,” which currently owns that property — should also be concerned about the outcome of this case.
In addition, in the “fresh” case from April 2026 the National Police are investigating a number of violations in the privatization of real estate objects that were in the communal ownership of the Kyiv community. Law enforcement focused on sales of 10 buildings and premises with an approximate value of over 64,8 million hryvnias (for some objects there are no price data, so the indicated sum is “incomplete”). Investigators found that some objects were sold at undervalued prices (sold at “old” prices), and in one case the city authorities sold a building noncompetitively to the current tenant who had not fully completed repairs there. In addition, one building was sold to a company whose director was only a nominal figure who agreed to provide his documents for 2 thousand hryvnias.
Recall that over the past several years the city prosecutor’s office has sent indictments to court on about six episodes of crimes (there may actually be more — KV) that were allegedly committed by the same Andriy Hudz and his first deputy Oleg Shmuliar. According to law enforcement, these officials illegally relieved tenants of a number of communal properties, including the Kyiv cinema building, of the obligation to pay rent to the city budget. As a result of such actions by officials, preliminary estimates indicate the city treasury suffered losses of about 24 million hryvnias. These funds will have to be reimbursed by the accused if their guilt is proven.
Andriy Hudz has headed the Department of Communal Property of the KCSA since 5 November 2014. Since June 2022 the exercise of the KCSA’s powers in the field of communal property management and privatization has been ensured by Kyiv councilor from the UDAR faction, deputy head of the KCSA Vladyslav Andronov.
Author: Oleksandr Hlazunov
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