Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
The three-judge panel meets only once every few months: the hearings scheduled for July never took place.
The High Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine 5 in November again postponed the hearing in the case of former Member of Parliament Maksym Mykytas. The court still has not reached Mykytas's final statement. According to the prosecution, Mykytas offered Dnipro Mayor Borys Filatov 22 million euros — a record bribe amount in the history of Ukrainian anti-corruption. The trial debates have been ongoing since 6 November 2025, and the next hearing was set only for 24 December, the Anti-Corruption Action Center reports.
Hearings in this case are scheduled extremely rarely. The last one took place on 29 October, and the previous one was only at the end of April. Two hearings set for July never happened. Why the court did not finish the debates on 5 November is unknown. There were no other hearings on the judges’ schedule for that day.
The case is being heard by a panel of High Anti-Corruption Court judges composed of Volodymyr Voronko, Andrii Bitsyuk, and Vira Mykhailenko.
In NABU's materials regarding operation “Forrest Gump,” former deputy head of the presidential office Iryna Mudra, who had close contacts with Mykytas, recalls conversations with then-head of HACC Vira Mykhailenko — the same person who is now on the panel in Mykytas's case. Mudra says: “This Semennikov, who… Vira once told me this, Semennikov is thrilled with you, he follows all your… ”
Mykhailenko herself acknowledged at the previous hearing that she had spoken with Mudra, but stated that she did not know about Mudra’s relationship with Mykytas and did not discuss the case. She did not file a recusal.
The statute of limitations in the case expires in October 2032.
Maksym Mykytas and Iryna Mudra also appear in another case: NABU and SAP in August announced special operation “Forrest Gump,” during which, according to the investigation, they were part of a criminal organization. When the pretrial restriction was being decided for Mudra, an SAP prosecutor read out conversations that allegedly discussed possible influence on judicial decisions. Mudra herself hinted in court that many of the conversations were recorded by Mykytas.
About why the judicial system in Ukraine is not functioning as it should, in a ZN.UA article titled “Five Reasons for Dysfunction in Ukrainian Justice” writes founding partner of Arzinger and former Deputy Minister of Justice Serhii Shkliar.
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