HACC has chosen preventive measure for SSU General Vitiuk - bail set at UAH 9 million
The High Anti-Corruption Court has imposed a preventive measure on Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) General Iliia Vitiuk.
This was reported by Censor.NET.
Judge Markiian Halabala partially granted the SAPO motion, setting bail at UAH 9.084 million.
The obligations will remain in force until November 4, 2025.
Vitiuk was assigned the following obligations:
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appear at the first request of NABU detectives;
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inform NABU detectives, the prosecutor, or the court of any change of residence;
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refrain from communicating with a number of specified individuals;
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surrender documents granting the right to travel abroad.
What did the prosecutor say during the hearing?
According to prosecutor Vitalii Kravets, Vitiuk has been charged with illicit enrichment, specifically the acquisition in 2023 of an apartment whose value far exceeded his family’s lawful income. He is also accused of declaring the property at an undervalued price and reporting his wife’s income as allegedly justifying the legality of the purchase.
The case involves declarations for 2022–2023, filed in 2024.
Vitiuk declared the apartment at UAH 12.83 million, while NABU and SAPO argue that the value does not correspond to the market price. An expert assessed its market value at UAH 18.649 million at the time of purchase in December 2023, according to the SAPO prosecutor.
In a previous document from October 2023, a realtor indicated a price of $600,000, or UAH 22.2 million.
Vitiuk's wife was in contact with the realtor. The real estate websites listed the price at $600,000.
Subsequently, according to the prosecutor, the price was changed to UAH 21,405,000 in the preliminary agreement, as there was a discount of $10,000. Then there was a note that by agreement of the parties, the estimated value of the apartment would be only UAH 12,698,000 (USD 350,000).
"That is, we can say that even before the final sale and purchase agreement was concluded, for some reason, measures were taken to conceal the true price of this apartment," he said.
On 1 November 2023, Vitiuk's wife told the realtor that the apartment would be registered in her name.
"The suspect provided his wife with funds for the apartment purchase … through acquisition into joint marital ownership," the prosecutor stated.
According to the prosecutor, after graduating from university Vitiuk worked exclusively in the SSU, with all his official income tied to the SSU. As for Vitiuk’s wife, she had no employment until 2022, when she registered as an individual entrepreneur. Her reported income has been linked to that activity.
Detectives established that as of December 5, 2023, the couple’s income-to-expenditure balance was minus UAH 1.692 million. While this shortfall is not being charged to the suspect, it indicates that they could not have purchased the apartment at full value.
Mrs. Vitiuk’s income as an individual entrepreneur amounted to UAH 9.5 million in 2022 and UAH 13.5 million in 2023, prior to the apartment purchase. It was this UAH 13.5 million income that was used to justify the declared price of UAH 12.8 million, the prosecutor noted.
What did the defence say?
The defense pointed out that in the correspondence between Vitiuk’s wife and the realtor, Illia Vitiuk is mentioned only once.
The lawyer also stated that the defense has the results of three expert assessments valuing the apartment at UAH 12.8 million.
"All these assessments either confirm or are close to the price at which the apartment was purchased. Some expert institutions set a range, from minimum to maximum, and that range fully matches the purchase price," the defense explained.
"We have four expert evaluations that confirm the real market value of the apartment at the purchase price. The prosecution has only one, which raises many questions and is hard to use as solid evidence. We also have a forensic report confirming no violations regarding income, expenses, or profits. There are no facts suggesting a lack of funds or any breaches of financial discipline in expenditures or revenues.
We have two economic assessments from different institutions and an audit that examined Mrs. Vitiuk’s individual entrepreneur activity with contractors. The flow of funds was fully traced. The first assessment examined whether the funds Yuliia Volodymyrivna (Vitiuk’s wife) received from Melnyk were connected to Ukrzaliznytsia (referring to the corruption case involving former SSU official and ex-presidential adviser Artem Shylo - ed.). It was studied and confirmed there was no connection.
The second assessment confirmed the audit’s conclusion, finding no signs of fictitious activity, risk factors, or irregularities," the lawyer added.
The defense also questioned why the prosecution requested bail of UAH 42 million
Vitiuk's statement in court
"Overall, I believe that such an arbitrary approach, this is my opinion, to suspicions, and the lack of accountability for detectives and prosecutors, will only lead us to legal nihilism. The text contains accusations against me, but there is no evidence of the subjective element of submitting false information, no evidence that I allegedly organized any fictitious activity of my wife. There is no proof that I knew the real value of the apartment. Yet it is I who received this suspicion," Vitiuk stated.
According to the SSU general, both an audit and a state economic assessment exist, but they are being disregarded.
"That means my wife’s financial and business activity has been confirmed by expert assessments and audits, and we also consulted various institutions regarding the pricing… All these materials have been added to the case file. Here, apart from the detective’s assumptions, there is nothing documented," he stressed.
Vitiuk also said he had no acquaintance with the criminal figure "Umka," which allegedly could have allowed him to influence participants in the case.
The case of Iliia Vitiuk
It was previously reported that NABU and SAPO served suspicion notices to Brigadier General of the Security Service of Ukraine Illia Vitiuk.
The SSU interprets this as "revenge."
In April 2024, journalists from Slidstvo.Info published an investigation stating that the wife of Illia Vitiuk, head of the SSU Cybersecurity Department, purchased an apartment in Kyiv’s Pecherskyi district in December 2023. The market value of such housing was estimated at UAH 21.5 million. The official salary of the SSU officer would not have been sufficient for such a purchase. However, after Vitiuk’s appointment as head of the SSU department, his wife registered as an individual entrepreneur and began receiving significant sums of money. In 2022, she earned UAH 9.4 million, and in 2023 - UAH 13.4 million. What specific services she provided, however, remains unknown.
The official’s mother, a practicing doctor, also owns property in residential complexes in Kyiv. The market value of the apartments at the exchange rate at the time of purchase exceeds UAH 4 million.
Two days after the publication, journalists reported that, in their view, the SSU used TCR personnel to serve a draft notice to Slidstvo.Info journalist Shulhat over his investigation into the property of General Vitiuk’s family. Journalists claim that Vitiuk’s subordinates at the SSU allegedly issued instructions to the TCR staff.
Following this, Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, chair of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Freedom of Speech, said after a meeting with SSU chief Maliuk that the latter made it clear the situation with the notice to the journalist would not be ignored.
Eventually, SSU chief Vasyl Maliuk suspended Vitiuk from his duties as head of the Department for Counterintelligence Protection of State Interests in the Sphere of Information Security. The SSU press center stated that, pending the review, Vityuk would serve in a unit of the department he headed, which performs defense tasks directly at the front together with the Center for Special Operations "A". On May 1, President Zelenskyy dismissed Illia Vityuk from the post of department chief.
Recently, however, Vitiuk was spotted at an event dedicated to the development of electronic warfare in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. A participant posted a photo of Vityuk in a vyshyvanka on Facebook, but the post was deleted after a scandal erupted around the image.
Journalists from Slidstvo.Info also found that SSU General Vitiuk filmed the Maidan shootings from the "Berkut" side while serving as an operative. The Prosecutor General’s Office and Serhii Horbatiuk, former head of the department investigating Maidan crimes, confirmed this to Slidstvo.Info. The video was later removed from the web.
