Elite cars, real estate and Russian passports: what Bihus.Info journalists found in family of BES official from Volyn. VIDEO
The family of Serhii Zhuravlov, deputy head of the Volyn regional office of the Bureau of Economic Security, owns expensive cars and elite real estate. The official himself explains some of these assets as help from his father, who lives in occupied territory and holds a Russian passport.
According to Censor.NET, this is reported in an investigation by Bihus.Info.
Property belonging to Zhuravlev's father
Journalists drew attention to the official’s declarations, in which he listed the use of real estate and cars that are officially owned by his father.
For example, Serhii Zhuravlov used his father’s BMW and Ford Mustang cars. In addition, in 2021, the father became the owner of an apartment and a parking space in the premium-class Delmar Lux residential complex in Dnipro. According to Zhuravlov, his father purchased this property because, being originally from the now-occupied part of the Donetsk region, he had no housing in territory controlled by Ukraine. However, it was the official himself who immediately began using this property.
During the same period, Zhuravlov’s father bought about 30 ares of land in the village of Horenychi near Kyiv. Assets also appeared among other family members. In 2024, Zhuravlov’s sister bought office premises of about 160 square metres in Dnipro. At the end of 2021, she also became co-owner of a large premises of almost 240 square metres in the city centre, where a hostel now operates.
According to the official, this is what caused the sharp rise in income shown by his Tetiana in 2024. Over the year, the woman earned more than UAH 7.5 million, seven times more than in previous years. Zhuravlov explained this by saying that the woman had joined the hostel business. As for the premises, which immediately began generating such profits, Zhuravlov said it had been bought for next to nothing:
"The appraised value of the property is UAH 335,000. It is not an apartment, it is a basement premises that was converted in line with technical standards into an apartment. In other words, it is a basement premises."
However, even with this purchase, the official said his father had allegedly helped, having previously done business in Donetsk region. In fact, it is his father’s earnings, which are not officially reflected anywhere, that Zhuravlov uses to explain the family’s lifestyle:
"The register has been maintained centrally since 2010 and, as I said, my father began selling all of his business from 2010. Therefore, those incomes may not be included in the centralised register. The nature of our state’s economy included such forms of settlement as cash, barter, and other currency exchange transactions. Cash circulation was a normal, ordinary practice. Because at that time, the state was not developed in such a way as to ensure full accounting. Taking that business into account, it is not even just one million dollars in wealth that I am simply telling you about."
At the same time, according to Bihus.Info journalists, Zhuravlov’s parents remained in the occupied part of theDonetsk region after 2014. Using aggregators of leaked Russian databases, the journalists also established that the official’s parents had obtained Russian passports. Zhuravlov at first explained this by family circumstances, in particular the need to care for elderly relatives. However, he added that since the mid-2000s his father had invested in real estate in Crimea, so he could not leave the occupied territories and abandon the property he had acquired. According to him, his father now periodically visits occupied Donetsk region and Crimea, and also from time to time stays in Italy, where he allegedly also bought real estate.
Possible ties to Russia
It should be noted that during the competition for the post of head of the Bureau of Economic Security of Ukraine in 2025, several candidates received negative signals from the special services over possible ties to Russia. This became grounds both for additional checks and for a public scandal around the selection process.
The Bureau of Economic Security of Ukraine said that after journalists’ questions regarding the property status of certain employees and their relatives, the internal security unit launched its own review.
