BEB hides the surnames of Tsyvinsky’s advisors: they were not checked for conflicts of interest

The Economic Security Bureau of Ukraine confirmed that the agency’s director, Oleksandr Tsyvinsky, has four unpaid advisors serving on a voluntary basis. BEB is not disclosing their names, specific areas of work, or appointment dates. In addition, the candidates were not vetted for actual or potential conflicts of interest.

This was reported by ThePublic with reference to an official letter from BEB.

Journalists sent a request about Tsyvinsky’s advisors after statements by the head of BEB’s Public Oversight Council, Taras Kotov, that a representative of a company ranking second in one of the excise goods markets had become the Bureau director’s advisor on detaxification of that sector. After that, searches were launched at the market-leading company, and some of its counterparties stopped cooperating with it.

In its reply to ThePublic, the Bureau confirmed the existence of four unpaid external advisors.

According to the document, they may analyze legislation, prepare expert recommendations, participate in interagency events, and advise the director on the Bureau’s activity priorities. Advisors also have the right to be present in the office premises of BEB’s central apparatus and territorial departments and to receive official IDs of the established sample.

The Bureau noted that advisors were not granted access to state secrets and did not sign non-disclosure agreements for restricted information.

Despite the journalists’ direct request, BEB did not provide the advisors’ surnames, their appointment dates, or the specific fields of work. The agency also did not supply the list of relevant orders or information about documents prepared with the consultants’ participation.

Instead, it stated that "checks of candidates for the positions of advisors to the BEB Director regarding the presence of real or potential conflicts of interest were not carried out."

According to ThePublic’s editorial team, this raises questions about the possible influence of private interests on the decisions of a state body, especially if business representatives are among the advisors.

However, despite public interest in the advisors’ activities, BEB limited itself to general explanations and thanked the editorial team for attention to openness and transparency issues.

Recall that in January–September 2026, BEB recovered 2,42 billion UAH in losses in completed cases compared to 3,63 billion UAH a year earlier. And the number of criminal offenses sent to court decreased by 40,7%. According to MP Danylo Hetmantsev, such a slowdown in detaxification caused significant shortfalls in budget revenues.