Kherson police officers received permission to search and seize documents that are under the authority of the Kherson City Clinical Hospital named after Yevhen Karabelesh as part of a criminal case on suspected embezzlement and misappropriation of property.
This is stated in a court ruling published in the Unified Register of Court Decisions.
The pre-trial investigation in the criminal proceeding began on August 2, 2025, on signs of a criminal offense provided for in part 4 of Article 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
It was entered into the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations at the request of the head of the Department of Health of the Kherson City Council, Viktoriia Khmilevska.
In the statement the now-dismissed official wrote that during an inspection she discovered a violation that may indicate signs of a criminal offense in the actions of hospital officials in the period from June 1 to December 31, 2022, including during activities and the conclusion of contracts with other business entities.
On August 6, Kherson police questioned the complainant as a witness; she testified that she analyzed the financial performance of healthcare institutions, including the activity of the Kherson City Clinical Hospital named after Yevhen Karabelesh, and found inconsistencies between the receipt and use of funds in the submitted reports for 2020-2024.
In addition, Khmilevska reported that the general director Alla Malytska at the time of concluding the contracts was abroad and therefore could not fully exercise her powers, and in fact could not conclude and sign contracts for receiving services and goods.
It should be noted that at the time of writing the police statement, Alla Malytska was already Khmilevska’s superior and they had an ongoing conflict.
Police checked the information about border crossings and found that Alla Malytska indeed “left the country through an unknown checkpoint and returned to the territory of Ukraine on 29.12.2022”.
The National Police investigator then concluded that Alla Malytska “was absent from the territory of Ukraine for at least the period from 11.11.2022 to 29.12.2022 and could not sign contracts on behalf of the hospital”.
Why the police officer counts her being “abroad” from November 11 is, in principle, understandable. That is the day from which Malytska could not physically leave because of an “unknown checkpoint” due to the blowing up of bridges across the Dnipro.
But why the investigator concluded she was abroad is an interesting question, because Kherson media repeatedly wrote that she was hiding from Russians at a dacha on the left bank, in the territory of temporarily occupied Kherson region, which is part of Ukraine.
That question is, of course, rhetorical and will be clarified in court, but it’s interesting to trace the train of thought of law enforcement.
On August 13, 2025, police sent a request to the hospital to obtain contracts, payment orders, and the movement of funds on the account, and on August 22 the documents requested were received in copies.
During analysis of the documents it was established that the contracts concluded on behalf of General Director Malytska were certified by a handwritten signature, and according to the contracts there are payment orders and acts of completed works that confirm payment for the goods and services received by the hospital in 2022.
Of the 54 copies of documents the police received in response to their request, none were signed in November 2022. Most were concluded and signed in summer 2022. A small portion in September and October. That is, at a time when Malytska could physically have come to the city and signed the documents, or they could have been brought to her for signature.
And now the police have asked the court for access to seize the original documents that they will examine as part of this criminal case.
It should be noted that procedural supervision is carried out by prosecutors of the Kherson District Prosecutor’s Office. This is an important detail, since the regional prosecutor has an ongoing conflict with the head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration, Oleksandr Prokudin, who has good relations with Alla Malytska and was effectively the initiator of her appointment as deputy to Yaroslav Shanko.
Thus, Serhii Hrytsenko is clearly interested in creating another problem for Prokudin and his team.
Viktoriia Khmilevska’s interest is also obvious. As we wrote above, she has an ongoing conflict with Alla Malytska and actively lobbied for her dismissal a year ago.
As is known, Viktoriia Khmilevska headed the health department of the Kherson City Council since 2024. She was appointed by the former head of the Kherson MVA, Roman Mrochko. In this position, Viktoriia, with the active support of a person without an official position, Vadym Hlushko, tried to establish control over the heads of all city healthcare institutions. Neither Khmilevska nor Vadym Hlushko managed to reach an agreement with Alla Malytska, so they persuaded Roman Mrochko to dismiss her.
After this decision, a wave of outrage arose in the media and social networks, which reached the capital. As a result, Mrochko was ordered by the Office of the President to stop these games and he was forced to reinstate Malytska.
But even after Mrochko’s dismissal and Hlushko’s expulsion from the city council, Viktoriia Khmilevska did not stop trying to make Alla Malytska’s life unbearable.
Having experience working as director of the Kherson City Dental Polyclinic, Khmilevska decided to strike the weak link — Malytska’s husband, who rents premises in his wife’s hospital and has a private dental office there.
In May 2025 Khmilevska tried to seize part of the premises of the Kherson City Hospital named after Karabelesh. The basis was an order by Mrochko that he signed retroactively — already after his dismissal. The document provided for transferring the hospital’s dental department to the city dental polyclinic.
As a result, in October Khmilevska was dismissed from her job, but she left many problems for Malytska.
By the way, Khmilevska’s daughter Daria is under investigation for violating labor legislation. In particular, in June the maternity hospital where her mother placed her on the staff paid Daria Khmilevska wages for two weeks that she spent abroad.
There are questions about the husband of the former official as well. Khmilevska’s husband, Serhii, is an entrepreneur in Kherson’s dental sector. In 2016 he founded LLC «Denta Trade Group», which manufactures prosthetics products and sells them to the municipal dental polyclinic. In addition to the business, Khmilevskyi worked at the dental polyclinic as an auxiliary worker with a small salary, but with privileges that provide exemption from mobilization.
So, as we can see, this game can be played by both parties, which both sides of the conflict are taking advantage of.