How President’s Office became cover for Mykytas’s and Stolar’s construction schemes
On Wednesday, August 19, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) announced that it had charged Iryna Mudra, deputy head of the Office of the President, with organizing a fundraiser—with the help of controversial real estate developer Maksym Mykytas—to secure the release on bail of former Minister of Energy and Justice Herman Halushchenko.
A day later, it emerged that Mudra had not merely overseen the fundraising for Halushchenko’s bail, which Mykytas had helped her to organise by channelling the funds through affiliated companies and pressuring Sence Bank’s financial monitoring department. She had also assisted the property developer in carrying out his schemes to seize property in the centre of Kyiv.
To pull off the property seizures, they enlisted hackers who tampered with registers, bribed judges, and coerced staff at the Presidential Office and the Ministry of Justice into going along with the scheme.
However, to understand the nature of these schemes, it’s worth briefly recalling who Mudra’s accomplice, Mykytas, is.
Maksym Mykytas has been the head of the ‘Ukrbud’ corporation since 2010 and is a member of the Kyiv City Council of the 7th convocation. In the summer of 2016, he was elected to the Verkhovna Rada. Although he stood as an independent, Ihor Kononenko – the then ‘grey cardinal’ of the Poroshenko era – made little secret of the fact that he was backing the Kyiv City Council member.
In 2019, following the change of government, Mykytas was notified that he was under suspicion of misappropriating National Guard property worth over 81 million hryvnias. In October of that year, the former MP was arrested, and his bail was increased to 80 million hryvnias.
As part of that case, Mykytas gave testimony to the NABU against the deputy Oleh Tatarov, who had previously worked at ‘Ukrbud’.
However, Tatarov did not lose his post, instead, his case was taken over by the NABU and dismissed through the courts, not without the involvement of former Deputy Prosecutor General Oleksii Symonenko.
In October 2022, NABU and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) exposed former MP Mykytas for attempting to bribe the mayor of Dnipro, Borys Filatov, with 22 million euros.
In conversations with Filatov recorded by NABU, Mykytas admitted that Oleh Tatarov, Deputy Head of the President’s Office, was assisting him in his activities, and that he controlled Lesia Zaburanna, a Member of Parliament and head of the Kyiv branch of the Servant of the People party.
On 25 October 2023, Mykytas faced new charges from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau.
As reported on the NABU website, the former MP was accused of embezzling 307 million hryvnias allocated in 2018 for the construction of secure armouries.
In 2022, the businessman’s partner, Oleh Maiboroda, told Censor.NET that Mykytas had secured this contract through corrupt connections.
"Thanks to Mykytas’s close ties with Kononenko, the BPP (Petro Poroshenko Bloc) office on Lavrska Street, worth $3 million, was renovated free of charge, which secured Mykytas contracts worth 1 billion hryvnias for the construction of military depots," said Maiboroda.
For his part, Mykytas reminded Censor.NET that his former business partner is fond of later retracting everything he has said via social media. In court, however, he hinted that perhaps the money should be sought not in Kyiv, but in Vienna.
Be that as it may, the investigation into the armoury case was halted in 2024 because a judge at the High Anti-Corruption Court ruled that the statute of limitations had expired.
Despite the fact that Mykytas spent a long time in pre-trial detention, back in 2022 the former MP announced that he had regained control of the Ukrbud corporation, for which he had been competing with his former partners –Dmytro Fedotenkov and Oleh Maiboroda.
In May 2023, the Mykytas family managed to gain control of Dinex Ltd, which in turn owned the financial company ‘Aragon’. And ‘Aragon’ was already a creditor of ‘Ukrbud’.
Following this, he began competing for the premises at 27 Pushkinska Street and several neighbouring premises.
This is, in fact, ‘Ukrbud’s’ head office. The average reader may never have seen this office, but may have come across discussions about the iconic photo of the high society figures taken there.
From the outset (since 2017), the premises have been owned by "Regional Resources" LLC. In his latest parliamentary declaration from 2019, Mykytas listed "Regional Resources" as a company in which he held a 100 per cent stake. He became one of the founders of the LLC back in 2017.
On 13 September 2019, Andrii Kostarev replaced Maksym Mykytas as a founder of "Regional Resources" LLC.
Judging by court records, in recent years there has been a fierce battle between the former partners at ‘Ukrbud’ over the premises on Pushkinska Street. For Mykytas, it held particular significance not only financially, but also because his father worked there.
As reported by the Legal Gazette of Ukraine, in February 2020 the premises became the property of ‘Ukrbud Development’ Ltd.
"According to a representative of ‘Regional Resources’, this was done in two stages. First, unidentified perpetrators used forged documents to change the company’s management and, through Volodymyr Koleichyk, a private notary in the Brovary District Notarial District, entered the relevant details into the Unified State Register of Legal Entities. Subsequently, the newly appointed head of ‘Regional Resources’ entered into an agreement with ‘Ukrbud Development’, under which the latter acquired ownership of the aforementioned property – the relevant entries in the State Register of Real Rights to Immovable Property were made by Oleksandr Zolotykh, a private notary of the Kyiv City Notarial District," the article stated.
It went on to explain that the genuine management of "Regional Resources" quickly became aware of this scheme and lodged a complaint with the Ministry of Justice, by order of which the registration actions were revoked and both notaries had their access to the relevant registers cancelled
The dispute over the property then moved to the Kyiv City District Administrative Court, before Judge Ablov. He ruled in favour of "Ukrbud", although he left "Regional Resources" with a chance to contest the ownership of the property.
As a representative of ‘Regional Resources’ Ltd explained to the publication in 2024, the property was eventually returned to their company, but they were unable to enter the details into the register ‘due to the hooliganism of their opponents’.
In fact, the materials from the NABU made it clear how Mykytas did it.
As the SAPO prosecutor stated in court, the members of the criminal group were:
- Iryna Mudra, former deputy head of the Office of the President;
- Viktor Dubovyk, Director-General of the Directorate for Legal Policy at the Office of the President (who directly organised the registration activities and the involvement of hacker groups for unauthorised interference in state registers);
- Olena Ferens, Deputy Minister of Justice;
- Maksym Mykytas, former Member of Parliament;
- Vadym Stolar, current Member of Parliament;
- Vasyl Astion, businessman (a member of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Council who was responsible for providing legal support in court proceedings relating to the seizure of assets and the laundering of funds);
- Mykola Hladyshenko, suspended chairman of the Supervisory Board of the state-owned ‘Sense Bank’;
- Oleh Stupak, Chairman of the Management Board of the state-owned ‘Sense Bank’;
- Liudmyla Snihur, head of a department at the state-owned ‘Sense Bank’;
- Valentin Yelizarov (a subordinate of Mykytas, director of ‘Metrobud’ Ltd);
- Mykyta Tarkovskyi (linked to Mykytas – he prepared financial contracts and, accordingly, front companies for the laundering of funds);
- Yehor Merkulov (Mykytas’s driver, nominal head of "Montazh Service" Ltd);
- Oleksandr Ostapenko (Mykytas’s bodyguard, nominal director of ‘Filosofiia Development’ Ltd).
As the SAPO prosecutor stated during the hearing on the imposition of a preventive measure against Yelizarov, on 15 November 2024, Mykytas and Vadym Stolar, a Member of Parliament from the Opposition Platform – For Life party, finalised an agreement—which was uncovered during the pre-trial investigation—regarding a 50-50 division of the property, and on 30 April 2026, they concluded a supplementary agreement regarding the financing of legal support for the unlawful seizure of property belonging to "Regional Resources" Ltd.
"As the company’s ownership rights were protected by court rulings, from April 2026 the members of the criminal organisation prepared unauthorised interference with state registers to lift the ban on registration actions and enlisted officials from the Ministry of Justice, with the involvement of Mudra and Dubovyk, to unlawfully carry out the Ministry of Justice’s order, despite despite being aware of the relevant court injunctions," the prosecutor noted.
He then quoted excerpts from a conversation between Yelizarov and Mykytas, in which they discuss arrangements with Stolar and roughly estimate their costs for carrying out the seizure of the property.
Mykytas: How much does it cost us to take action on the consulate regarding the hackers? Apart from the football team, we’d worked that out with you before, right? Let’s go over it again. The hackers – how much will that cost us?
Yelizarov: Somewhere around 20–25, well, let’s say 25.
Mykitas: Well, we’ll pay 25 then.
Yelizarov: We were planning to settle for 20.
Next, Mykytas and Yelizarov discuss the need to file lawsuits and work out how long they might take. They estimate a timeframe of half a year to go through the courts and obtain an order from the Ministry of Justice.
In another conversation, the former MP also describes how much money he spends on carrying out his schemes to seize property. In particular, he mentions that he enlisted the help of law enforcement officers to block his competitors’ actions.
Former MP (26 January 2026):
"No, no, no. We’ve still got some loopholes there, so to speak, to put it bluntly. They can do it; NAIS can carry it out. I want to. The thing is, yes, but the prosecution’s asking, saying: ‘Listen, I’ll be honest with you, for f#ck’s sake, we’ve taken the money, for f#ck’s sake. Max, how much longer do we have to wait for you to withdraw it?" — "Lads, hold on to it until the 10th, for f#ck’s sake. All right, no need to return it," I say. Hold onto it until the 10th and — I say — I’ll have a court order — I say — after the 4th or 5th there’ll be a court order, roughly speaking."
Former MP (28 January 2026):
"He also had the task of holding onto this one, holding onto Pecherskyi, keeping the Pecherskyi Court. There you go. And, well, we agreed on 5, 5. Well, I sorted it out with Sasha. Valik and Sasha, 5, 5. There you go. Then Sasha rings, as usual, you know, in Vitia’s style. ‘The bosses have agreed over there, that’s it; they told me you’re bringing 10 urgently.’ Valik calls me back: ‘Bloody hell, we agreed it would be this one.’ Well, you know how it was back then, remember: ‘100. I said 100. Maksym agreed to 100.’"
In fact, this gives an idea of how much judges, for example, at the notorious Pechersk Court, were earning from such rulings.
"Is that enough? We’ve already sorted all this out, we’re already there, poor Iryna Romanivna," Yelizarov asks Mykytas in one of their conversations.
From previously published materials, it becomes clear that Mykytas had been in contact for a long time with the Deputy Head of the Presidential Office, Iryna Mudra, and had asked her to put pressure on officials at the Ministry of Justice to ensure they signed the necessary decisions.
In fact, the conversation about the money needed to secure the court’s decision takes place with Mudra.
Former MP: "It’s just like last time. Remember when he tried to wheedle 100,000 out of us? And there was no way out."
Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration: "Listen, isn’t that a bit much to cover, so to speak?"
Former MP: "I realise perfectly well that whatever happens to this prosecutor – you know, the one who was taking money from me – Vitia won’t tell the truth."
Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration: "We need to put an end to this with Viktor."
Of all the individuals involved in the case, the only one named Viktor is Dubovyk, who works with Mudra at the Presidential Administration.
At Mykytas’s request, Mudra consistently pushed certain decisions through the Ministry of Justice until one of her counterparts refused to carry out her instructions.
Former MP:"*** (Ministry of Justice official), get the f#ck out of here, and sort out all this f#cking mess they’re stirring up against me, for f#ck’s sake! Against me!"
Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration: "I don’t know who’s smearing you."
Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration: "Do you realise what I’ve written to her! I’ve written a bloody article myself!"
Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration:"I wrote an article! You didn’t tell me about (n/a)."
Former MP: "But I’ve told you 150 times."
Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration: "About the forged decisions." "You didn’t tell me that!"
Former MP:
"That’s what I’m talking about – * (Ministry of Justice official), for f#ck’s sake! I was talking about * (Ministry of Justice official), for f#ck’s sake! *** (Ministry of Justice official) has been sacked, for f#ck’s sake! And that one’s been sacked too, for f#ck’s sake!"
Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration:
"We got rid of *** (Ministry of Justice official) with your consent. And you yourself told me to get rid of him." "D#mn it, I've talked myself for an article, you know? I've talked myself for an article?!""
This seems to be the most dramatic conversation between Mudra and Mykytas, because the court documents suggest that, as well as facilitating the businessman’s shady dealings, the Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration also helped him avoid punishment for numerous corruption cases.
Mudra: "I’m sure that with our Supreme Court, we’ll be able to consolidate everything (the cases against Mykytas?)".
Mykytas: "They won’t lock me up, that’s for sure. We’ll sort this out."
From the evidence presented in court during the hearing on the application for a preventive measure against Mykytas, it also became clear that he had been funding Mudra and paying for her daughter’s education. At the same time, at some stage they began to suspect that an investigation was underway; they tried to wipe their phones, and Mudra was prepared to move out of the flat and hide suitcases full of valuables somewhere.
According to the investigation’s findings, in the autumn of 2025 the suspects took control of company assets worth over 248 million hryvnias. In May 2026, they attempted to acquire property worth over 207 million hryvnias. One of the incidents involved properties in the centre of Kyiv worth over half a billion hryvnias. At the same time, Vadym Stolar spent over half a million dollars on funding these schemes.
So, it is no surprise that, given the scale of the operation, Mykytas ‘helped’ Mudra ‘a little’ to ensure she wasn’t targeted from above, in order to save Private Halushchenko.
Tetiana Nikolaienko for Censor.NET
