Judge-and-prosecutor Hrabets family purchased property with market value of $1 million – media. PHOTO
The family of a Kyiv judge and prosecutor has acquired property worth more than one million dollars in recent years. During Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ihor Hrabets, deputy head of the Kyiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office and husband of Svitlana Hrabets, a judge of the Kyiv Regional Commercial Court, along with their relatives, purchased apartments in luxury hotels in Bukovel. What stands out are the prices at which the deals were finalized, simple calculations show that the properties were bought significantly below market value.
This is according to an investigation by hromadske, as reported by Censor.NET.
Bukovel apartments
In 2023, the Hrabets family invested in elite hotel complexes in Bukovel. The market value of two different apartments in two different hotel complexes is almost $550,000, or more than 20 million hryvnia at the exchange rate at the time of purchase. This is the minimum price for this property.
In his property declarations, Ihor Hrabets, deputy head of the Kyiv Regional Prosecutor's Office, stated that he had invested in construction in September 2023. Hromadske found out that these were apartments in the premium Mountain Residence complex in Bukovel.
The area of the apartments in Mountain Residence purchased by prosecutor Ihor Hrabets is relatively small — almost 63 m². But the prices for real estate in this complex are premium. Currently, similar apartments are sold for more than $350,000.
In May 2023, investment in the unfinished building ranged from a minimum of $4,000 per m² to almost $5,000. And in September 2023, the very month when the prosecutor invested in this premium hotel, a m² in Mountain Residence cost at least $4,350. Therefore, the minimum market value of the prosecutor's apartment at the time of purchase should have been approximately $273,000, or almost 10 million hryvnias.
But officially, Hrabets purchased the apartment in this complex at more than four times below market value. The property cost him 2.4 million hryvnias, or about $65,000, compared to the market value of more than $270,000. The judge and prosecutor's family did not officially have the money to purchase the apartment at its market value. However, Svitlana and Ihor Hrabets declared significant savings. The couple declared $220,000 in cash in 2022, before purchasing the apartment in Bukovel. And at the end of 2023, after the purchase, they had $185,000 in cash savings left. The difference is only $35,000.
The father of Judge Svitlana Hrabets, Yurii Domin, a pensioner and former prosecutor, purchased an apartment in another Bukovel hotel. The complex is called Glacier Premium Apartments. Yurii Domin purchased the property in the same month as his son-in-law, in September 2023.
The area of the apartments purchased by Yurii Domin is also relatively small, only 61 m². However, at the end of 2023, one square metre in this hotel cost at least $4,500. Therefore, the minimum market value of the property should have been around $275,000. But officially, the apartments cost 3.5 times less than the market price. The man spent about $75,000 on them.
Yurii Domin and prosecutor Ihor Hrabets also bought one parking space each in both complexes. Officially, they cost only $6,000 and almost $7,000 each. However, such spaces are currently selling for $30,000.
Mansion near Kyiv
In their asset declarations, Ihor and Svitlana Hrabets reported that since December 2019, they have been residing in a 286 m² house owned by the judge’s father. Hromadske found that the property is located in the elite gated community Riviera Zoloche near Kyiv.
The judge’s father purchased real estate in this cottage community in May 2019. In early 2022, just before the full-scale invasion, similar houses in the neighboring Zoloche area were listed by the developer for nearly half a million dollars and that price did not include renovations.
According to official documents, Yurii Domin did not buy a house but supposedly purchased only the land plot in May 2019, for roughly 153,000 hryvnias. Construction of a mansion under the "Frank" project was then reportedly launched and completed within just one month, from August to September 2019. However, satellite imagery shows that the mansion was already completed back in 2017.
Judge Svitlana Hrabets’s parents are now retired. However, her mother, also a former judge, Olha Domina, filed her last asset declaration in 2017. A year and a half before Yurii Diomin purchased the luxury mansion, the couple’s declared savings amounted to just $7,000 and ₴500,000. It remains unclear how the pension-age couple, both lifelong state employees, managed to acquire the remaining hundreds of thousands of dollars needed for elite real estate in 2019.
Hromadske journalists asked Judge Hrabets about the origin of her family’s wealth."All assets owned by me and my family members were acquired on legal grounds, and the funds used for their purchase are lawful income obtained in accordance with the legislation," Hrabets said.
