NABU has detained "Servant of People" Kuzminykh in bribery case: he has already been taken to detention centre
A sitting Member of the Ukrainian Parliament has been arrested on charges of receiving undue benefits in exchange for helping private companies win tenders to supply medical equipment in the Zhytomyr region.
This was reported by Censor.NET, citing the NABU press office.
Who is involved?
NABU has not disclosed the MP’s surname, but case files indicate that the individual in question is Serhii Kuzminykh. He is accused of accepting a bribe of 558,000 UAH and failed to appear at a hearing at the Pechersk District Court in Kyiv.
It is noted that the arrest was carried out by NABU detectives in accordance with a ruling by the High Anti-Corruption Court due to the defendant’s systematic failure to appear at court hearings.
The most recent such failure to appear was due to the defendant’s business trip to the Kingdom of Spain.
The MP is now in a detention centre
He has now been taken to a temporary detention centre.
The hearing on the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office’s application to change the preventive measure to remand in custody without the option of bail is scheduled for 29 June 2026 at 11:00 a.m.
Case details
According to the investigation, in January 2022, the MP received 558,000 UAH in unlawful benefits via a trusted intermediary. This sum amounted to 30 per cent of the value of a contract for the supply of an ultrasound diagnostic system, concluded between a municipal enterprise – a hospital in Zhytomyr – and a private company. The funds were intended to influence hospital officials to ensure that this company was declared the winner of the public procurement tender.
Furthermore, the accused guaranteed that, in future, in return for a "30 per cent kickback", he would use his influence to secure the funding and implementation of two further contracts – for the supply of a magnetic resonance imaging system and laparoscopic equipment – totalling over 38 million hryvnias.
- The MP’s actions have been classified under Part 2 of Article 369-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (abuse of influence).
- The indictment was sent to court back in 2022. Despite this, over the course of almost four years, the defendant repeatedly failed to appear at court hearings.
- In particular, he failed to attend court hearings on 29 October 2025, 30 March, 1 June and 22 June 2026. For two of these absences, the court imposed a financial penalty on the accused – by orders dated 24 November 2025 and 27 April 2026. The defendant justified some of his absences by citing business trips abroad that coincided with the scheduled court hearings.
NABU emphasises that the defendant’s systematic evasion of participation in the court proceedings posed a real risk of delaying the proceedings. - The enforcement measure and the preventive measure were initiated by a prosecutor from the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) with the aim of preventing the defendant from further evading the court and ensuring the conclusion of the trial within a reasonable timeframe.
More on the case of Serhii Kuzminykh
- On 28 January 2022, detectives from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) caught the Member of Parliament in the act of receiving a bribe amounting to 558,000 UAH. However, the MP could not be arrested at the scene of the crime due to ‘parliamentary immunity’, as the Prosecutor General did not sign the notice of suspicion until 31 January.
- At that time, Kuzminykh, through his lawyer, stated that he was in hospital, but refused to specify which one. NABU was forced to issue a warrant for his arrest, after which he turned himself in to NABU, where he was detained.
- Due to the actions of the MP and his lawyer, the decision on his pre-trial measure was delayed until the end of May. Eventually, the High Anti-Corruption Court released Kuzminykh on bail of around 50,000 UAH.
- On 15 July 2022, prosecutors from the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) and NABU detectives completed the pre-trial investigation in the criminal proceedings and made the case files available to the defence for review.
- On 23 September 2022, the indictment was sent to the High Anti-Corruption Court for consideration on the merits. When the indictment was served on the MP, he threw the documents out of his car window.
