Petty feudalism: How former military officer was removed from office of council secretary in Boiko and Shefir communities
Have you heard anything about the Feodosiivka community in the Kyiv region? I’m sure not - I wouldn’t say that. You’ve definitely heard about the village of Ivankovychi, where President Volodymyr Zelenskyy once lived and where the leader of the OPFL, Yurii Boyko, still lives. You have even heard about the routes between the villages. After all, Serhii Shefir, who was assassinated between the villages of Kruhlyk and Khodosivka, lives in the same community.
The Feodosiivska community was established in 2020 by merging the Hvozdiv, Ivankovychi, Roslavychi village councils of Vasylkiv district and the Lisnyky, Khodosivka, Khotiv village councils of Kyiv-Sviatoshynskyi district. The community is located 15 minutes from Kyiv. This means that politicians, prosecutors, judges, and pop singers live here. Former politicians Ivan Bakanov and Nataliia Korolevska, businessmen Yurii Kosiuk, Lev Partskhaladze, and others have lived or are living here. And of course, the land here is expensive. Cottages on specialized websites cost 2-8 million, some of them are of course VIP and "priceless".
"Of course, some local deputies do not even hide the fact that they take money for land allocation," says one of Censor.NET's interlocutors.
To clarify: in June 2016, Pavlo Zubov, the head of the Hvozdiv village council (which is part of the Feodosiivka community), and Oleksii Shamalan, a member of the village council, were detained for extortion and bribetaking of 300 thousand euros and 10 thousand dollars. They asked for this money to grant long-term leases of land plots with a total area of 26 hectares to representatives of an agricultural enterprise.
In early 2023, the High Anti-Corruption Court sentenced both defendants to 9 years in prison, depriving them of their rights to hold office.
Of course, many people want to have power over such a money-producer place. This text is a story of how the struggle for power has been going on in the Feodosiivka community for more than a month.
Ihor Moskalenko was elected to the local council in 2020. Before that, he headed the local branch of the Right Sector. In the fall, he organized a group of volunteers for the TDF (Territorial Defense Forces), offered to buy water and food from the reserve fund. He says they laughed at him then. On February 24, he took his family to the Ternopil region. And the next day he joined the TDF.
He fought in different areas, and after being injured, he was discharged from the Armed Forces.
In September 2023, the head of the Feodosiivka community, Mykola Pianchuk, suddenly resigned from his post at a session. It is said that before that, they wanted to dismiss him for land distribution.
"After I returned from the front, various colleagues began to call me and offer to head the council. More precisely, to become the secretary. To be honest, immediately after the election, it was clear from the deputies who came to work for the community and who came to work for themselves. We had a lot of land distributed in 2021. That's why I immediately warned them that I would only agree if no conditions were set for me," Moskalenko recalls.
The elections took place in December 2023. Moskalenko's only competitor was Dmytro Boiko, who appears in the NACP's register of corrupt officials.
Moskalenko won. He held a winter session, where the budget and social economy were voted on. On March 22, he convened a session to distribute grants-in-aid. Among other things, it was about building shelters in schools and allocating money for the Armed Forces.
But only 10 deputies out of 24 attended the session.
"In the winter, the State Emergency Service closed all kindergartens and schools due to the lack of shelters, and here we have this," says the council secretary.
Moskalenko had no choice but to postpone the session, and then he received a call from a colleague (a representative of the Unity party) that he would vote only after people were appointed to the positions.
It was the head of the humanitarian-development department (the largest spending unit of the local budget). After discussing the ultimatum demand of the deputies from the Unity group with the rest of the deputies, Moskalenko agreed to the appointment of candidates from the Unity group, namely the head of the humanitarian-development department and the deputy village head for housing and communal services, but did not agree to the head of the department for land issues (who is a defendant in criminal proceedings) and the replacement of the heads of communal enterprises who were worth keeping.
"On March 22, the deputies gathered for a session, and some of them decided to introduce a draft decision on the early termination of the council secretary's powers. But they did so in violation of the law. Therefore, we offered them 10 days to pass this decision procedurally, formalize it, and then vote on it," says local deputy Nataliia Mandziak.
Approval of the agenda without staff rotation but no votes for allocating money for schools and the Armed Forces.
According to her, the community - and there were more than 100 people in the hall at the time - was very outraged by these events. "And those deputies had to leave the hall with the words ‘Shame,’" she adds.
"After these deputies left, the quorum was lost, and Chairman Moskalenko was forced to adjourn the 29th session... The rest of the deputies left.
And in the evening, they read in local public pages that in some other room, the rebel deputies had gathered and voted for their secretary, Oleksandr Hladush. At the same time, to please the community, they allegedly "voted" to allocate funds for the Armed Forces and approve detailed plans for the construction of shelters.
"I had no choice but to congratulate them with the new Sievierodonetsk," Moskalenko says.
It is interesting to note who was among those who replaced the secretary in the other building. Among them is Dmytro Boiko, who in 2013, while serving as the head of the Hvozdiv village council, was convicted under Part 2 of Article 364 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine "Abuse of power or official position.
Now Boiko is the head of the communal enterprise Khodkomunservice. The company has two tractors, but it does not have a pruning truck-mounted platform. Therefore, according to the local community group, the deputy took this equipment from his own company, Hvozdov Consulting Group Limited Liability Company.
Anatolii Pohodnia is a native of Nizhyn, and there he was involved in a criminal proceeding against the mayor of the city, Mykhailo Prykhodko.
The mayor of Nizhyn himself claimed that it was Pohodnia who planted the bribe in his car. He also negotiated about the bribe.
A few years later, Pohodnia lost his position as head of the Nizhyn market, tried unsuccessfully to run for parliament, and found his way into the Kyiv region as director of the construction company Buddyzain-21 (Construction 21).
Before that, Oleksandr Hladush was the head of the village council in Lisnyky, and after the elections in 2020 to the newly created united territorial community, he became the head of the village council's land commission.
Other deputies who illegally supported the change of the secretary either appeared in land scandals or in a dozen criminal proceedings at once. If you open their declarations, you can find either up to a dozen land plots or the same number of apartments.
On March 27, the deputies gathered for another meeting announced by Moskalenko, but there were only 10 of them, so again without a quorum. Meanwhile, the decision of the self-proclaimed session was published in the Obukhivskyi Krai newspaper. The newspaper is private, not municipal. Its founder in 2019 was an authorized representative of Yurii Boiko.
"The next step of this group was to forge documents and make a false seal of the village council. In other words, they held a so-called "pseudo-session" in flagrant violation of the law and the Regulations, so they could not come to Moskalenko and ask him to hand over the seal. Instead, with these documents and a fake seal, they went to the state registrar and entered in the register, where Hladush was recorded as the secretary," Mandziak said.
By the way, for some reason, they went to the registrar in Bucha, and not in their own district.
On April 1, an employee of the ASC informed Moskalenko that Hladush was listed in the register as a secretary. But after a while, this entry disappeared.
In fact, when they went to Bucha to look into the entry in the register, they found out that the documents had a fake seal on them.
"We went to the Bucha District State Administration, and there was a seal of the Feodosiivka village council on the documents, but not the same as mine," Moskalenko recalls.
According to the deputies who remained on Moskalenko's side, while holding their illegitimate session, some deputies not only violated the law when submitting documents to replace the secretary. They also forgot to appoint the "secretary" they had elected as the head of the executive committee.
When Moskalenko convened the executive committee, there was no quorum, and after that, the rebels brought a new decision that Hladush was the head of the executive committee. Only for some reason, if the decision on the election of the secretary was signed by Dmytro Boyko, then it is Hladush himself," the deputy points out.
However, they did not go to the state registrar at the ASC with these documents, but to a private notary from Obukhiv, who, by the way, knew about the problem with the community leadership, the criminal proceedings on the forgery of the village council decisions, and the complaint filed with the Ministry of Justice against the actions of the state registrar of the Bucha District State Administration regarding the illegal change of the community leader, accepted the documents from Hladush and entered him into the Unified State Register as the head of the village council's executive committee.
Over the past month, Moskalenko has convened sessions several times, but all without a quorum. The executive committee also does not work, as some of its members, such as the village chiefs of Hvozdiv and Khotiv, do not attend its meetings and, accordingly, sabotage the work of the executive committee of the village council. Thus, all processes in the community are currently blocked.
During this time, the deputies who did not participate in the rebellion filed reports of the crime with the National Police and the SSU Main Directorate. The community also tried to launch a procedure for recalling the deputies who tried to remove the secretary. However, the process was constantly obstructed by the head of the local commission because he was a friend of one of the participants in the change of power. People appealed to the CEC, using similar stories in other communities, but they were transferred to the district territorial election commission. And the process stopped again.
What the process looks like from the point of view of Moskalenko's opponents can only be judged by publications on social media. Censor.NET asked Hladush for a comment, but he did not respond. Therefore, the author had to confirm the veracity of Moskalenko's position through communication with community members. They actually brought this story to the editorial office.
However, for the sake of balance, let's quote something called Iznanka:
"Also, this week I. Moskalenko did not perform the necessary actions to transfer his powers to his successor. What is important, when I. Moskalenko became the secretary/temporarily assuming the responsibilities of secretary of the village council in the confusion (4.12.24), his predecessor, A. Pohodnia, completed all the necessary procedures for the transfer of powers the very next day (5.12.24). As of 6.12.24, the village council was able to work fully, receive salaries on time, and pay bills. M. Pianchuk did the same. Whatever they were, good or bad, they left the community able to function.
Five months have passed, and Ihor is not working, but playing behind-the-scenes games. In 5 months, I. Moskalenko has not made any personnel changes (all of M. Pianchuk's proteges continue to fulfill his wishes, for which Mykola was dismissed by the community), has not even implemented the already approved projects, and has not been able to convene either sessions or executive committees. This is not a criticism, these are simple facts, something he personally had to think about. Why did I fail? How should I have acted? What was the reason why the majority of deputies sent me to Coventry?
What the community has today.
The actions of I. Moskalenko, who has fled, stealthily, prevented the work of the executive committee of the community in the regular mode - the absence of the right for his signature in the Treasury has already blocked for 2 weeks the possibility of receiving salaries for employees of the executive committee, humanitarian department and other structures (up to 500 people), which stops the educational process, documentary and medical services for the community, payment of bills for suppliers of goods, works and services."
On 29 April, a panel of the Ministry of Justice considered a complaint against the actions of the state registrar who made a new entry about the secretary. Minister Denys Maliuska decided to uphold Ihor Moskalenko's complaint.
"1. The complaints of the secretary of the village council and the acting head of the village council of Feodosiivka village council of Obukhiv district of Kyiv region Moskalenko Ihor Oleksiiovych dated 09.04.2024 to be satisfied.
- To recognize as committed in violation of the Law of Ukraine "On State Registration of Legal Entities, Individual Entrepreneurs and Public Organizations" and cancel the registration action in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, Individual Entrepreneurs and Public Organizations of 01.04.2024 No. 1003391070012005417 "State Registration of Changes to Information about a Legal Entity", carried out by the state registrar of the Bucha District State Administration of the Kyiv Region, Ihor Anatoliyovych Horenko, in relation to the Feodosiivka Village Council of the Obukhiv District of Kyiv region (legal entity identification code 04362148).
- To temporarily block access to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, Individual Entrepreneurs and Public Organizations for a period of one (1) month for the state registrar of the Bucha District State Administration of Kyiv Region, Ihor Anatoliyovych Horenko," the order of the Minister of Justice reads.
However, according to Moskalenko's supporters, it is unlikely that their opponents will stop there and stop pumping the situation.
Censor.NET asked Hladush for a comment on his version of events but received no response. Therefore, Moskalenko's version had to be verified through the stories of community members who were watching the situation with surprise and dissatisfaction.
Tetiana Nikolaienko, Censor. NET
