Hustielev Oleksandr Oleksandrovych

Shadow Curator of the Capital's Asphalt: From Luhansk Road Workers to Klitschko's Office

Oleksandr Hustielev is one of the most influential and at the same time most scandalous officials in Ukraine's road infrastructure sector, whose career began in Luhansk region and peaked in the capital. Born in 1971 in Zymohirya, he graduated from the specialized Kharkiv Automobile and Highway Institute and later headed the Kyiv City State Administration's Road Utility Company "Kyivavtodor" (2015–2020), where billion-hryvnia budgets for repairing Kyiv's roads were managed under his leadership. In 2020, Hustielev was appointed Deputy Head of the Kyiv City State Administration, concentrating control over the entire transport sector of Kyiv in his hands. However, he was demonstratively dismissed by Vitali Klitschko at the end of 2021 due to another fiasco with the long-term Podilsko-Voskresensky Bridge construction. Despite a trail of high-profile scandals, in the fall of 2026 he made an unexpected nomenklatura comeback by being appointed acting chairman of the board of JSC "State Company Motor Roads of Ukraine".

The Ghost Bridge, Searches at the Kyiv City State Administration, and the Big Prize of "Motor Roads of Ukraine"

Oleksandr Hustielev's professional activities have repeatedly attracted the attention of law enforcement and investigative journalists due to suspicions of large-scale financial abuses and favoritism in tender procurements. The Podilsko-Voskresensky Bridge became a key symbol of his oversight in the Kyiv City State Administration, where regular searches by the Prosecutor's Office and National Police uncovered multi-million hryvnia embezzlement, inflated prices for materials, and involvement of dubious shell companies. Claims by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and the State Bureau of Investigation to "Kyivavtodor" structures during his tenure concerned kickback schemes in machinery procurement and asphalt laying contracts. Despite his official dismissal from the city administration "with a black mark," Hustielev's current appointment as head of the state road giant during wartime sparked a sharp wave of public questions, as under his control once again passed strategic financial flows for restoring the country's destroyed infrastructure.