Kherson Regional Council deputy Volodymyr Khvostov (Servant of the People) is trying to evade administrative liability for corruption by delaying the case.
These conclusions can be drawn after analyzing the court rulings in the deputy’s case.
This concerns a case that was received by the Kherson City Court on October 22, 2025. The court began considering materials on the commission of an administrative offense related to corruption, namely concerning the submission of knowingly false information by the deputy in his declaration.
MOST previously wrote about this case. An authorized person of the NACP found that in his 2022 declaration Khvostov indicated inaccurate data regarding the value of more than one hundred land plots, five apartments in Kyiv and two in Kherson.
He also understated the value of his 2017 Land Rover, stating that the car is worth UAH 3.4 million, although, according to the EDR TZ, the car is worth UAH 4.5 million.
In addition, Khvostov did not declare a pleasure boat, the value of which could have been UAH 533,000, allegedly because it remained in temporarily occupied territory.
Such an offense entails the imposition of a fine from UAH 17,000 to 42,500.
But it seems the deputy does not want to pay the fine, so his defender filed two motions. The first is to postpone the hearing of the case due to Volodymyr Khvostov being on an official business trip until December 1, 2025.
This was confirmed by the lawyer with orders dated October 16 and 23, 2025 for a business trip to Poland, Germany and Austria from October 23. They were signed by Khvostov himself.
In the court session the prosecutor asked the court to suspend the time for considering the case on the administrative offense for the duration of the business trip.
The court supported this motion and suspended the time limits.
Note that the statute of limitations for bringing to administrative responsibility under Article 172-6 of the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offenses (violation of financial control requirements) is 3 months. Thus the defender tried to delay the case as much as possible in order to absolve Khvostov of liability.
The second motion concerned changing the court.
Lawyer Buryak filed a motion to send the case to bring Khvostov to administrative responsibility to another court at his place of residence, namely to the Holosiivskyi District Court of Kyiv. He justified this motion by the possibility of applying an analogy of the law with the procedural norms of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine, according to which in exceptional cases, in order to ensure the promptness and effectiveness of criminal proceedings, a case may be transferred for consideration to another court at the defendant’s place of residence.
The lawyer also noted that Kherson is in close proximity to the combat zone, which, in the event the case is heard in the Kherson City Court, could create additional risks for all participants in the court proceedings.
The court refused the lawyer, stating that the offense unquestionably falls within the territorial jurisdiction of the Kherson City Court, and the defender did not present any exceptional circumstances.