An unusual boom in lawsuits filed in illegally created courts is now being observed in the temporarily occupied territories of the Kherson region and the Crimean Peninsula. Local collaborators and traitors, whose high salaries the Russians began cutting in 2024, have started claiming various allowances and bonuses. Specialists, heads of departments and divisions of occupation ministries and other structures demand that the Russians pay them an additional 500 thousand to 4 million rubles. And quite often the “courts” accommodate them.
Even the occupation media were outraged by the number of cases related to additional payments for VIP “officials”. They fear that because of the sky-high appetites the structures illegally created by the Russians may not have enough money for other needs. Especially given the lack of funds that almost every one of them has faced in recent years.
Earlier we wrote how collaborators and Russians who come to work in the temporarily occupied territories of the Kherson region have to sue to recover unpaid wages through so-called courts. In that article we examined how they also manage to obtain million-ruble allowances for themselves.
A million for the newlyweds
Over 1.3 million rubles in unpaid allowances and interest for their delay were “won” from the occupiers by Russian citizen Valentina Astranina. In 2024 she worked as head of the public relations and media interaction department of the secretariat of the so-called Kherson Regional Duma.
To obtain additional payments she turned to the “Leninsky District Court of Sevastopol”. The court agreed that she had the right to an allowance “for special conditions of the state civil service” for the period from January to October 2024 in the amount of almost 850 thousand rubles, interest for the delay in their payment – almost 440 thousand rubles, compensation for moral damage of 50 thousand rubles, and so on.
The “Duma” did not object to this and filed an appeal only concerning part of the moral damages and the fee of almost 28 thousand rubles.
The appellate panel of the occupation “Sevastopol City Court” on June 4, 2026 partially satisfied the “Duma”’s complaint regarding the fee. Its payment was assigned to Astranina. Accordingly the rest of the sum – over 1.3 million rubles – was to be paid to the occupation ex-official.
Valentina Astranina – the wife of the former “minister of youth policy” of Kherson region Igor Astranin, a political provocateur and former head of the Astrakhan branch of the pro-Putin movement “Nashi”.
In 2024 Igor Astranin married Valentina following the order of Russian President Vladimir Putin “On the preservation and strengthening of traditional Russian spiritual and moral values”.
Payments for Yuliya Semyakina
The head of the occupation administration of the Henichesk city community, 47-year-old Yuliya Semyakina, also sued for additional payments. The decision in her favor was issued by judge Irina Demchenko of the so-called “Henichesk District Court” on January 28, 2026.
Semyakina was to be paid various allowances for the period of her work in the occupation Ministry of Agro-Industrial Complex, Food Policy and Fisheries of Kherson region. However, the amount of her claims was not disclosed due to the occupiers’ practice of hiding court documents.
In April this decision was canceled and a new hearing in the same “court” was scheduled and transferred to another so-called judge – Madina Abdullina. In one of the sessions Semyakina’s interests were represented by 33-year-old collaborator Vadim Voloshin, former head of the legal department of the Henichesk city council, who worked as deputy head of the occupation administration of Henichesk.
There is never enough money for collaborators
Forty-eight-year-old collaborator Maksym Lytvynenko appealed to the occupation Kherson City Court. After he headed the seized agricultural firm Radgosp “Bilozersky” he moved in 2022 to the occupation agricultural ministry of Kherson region. First he led the department of horticulture, viticulture and winemaking of the crop production directorate, then the directorate of crop production, mechanization and reclamation. And he rose to become a full deputy pseudo-minister.
The occupation court partially satisfied Lytvynenko’s claim on April 8, 2026. The Russians did not disclose the amount of his demands. However, occupation media indicate that they are no less than those of other colleagues from the VIP circle of officials of institutions illegally created in the TOT of Kherson region. He clearly extracted a couple of million rubles or so from the gullible Russians.
Why did this become possible?
The occupation Ministry of Agro-Industrial Complex, Food Policy and Fisheries of Kherson region together with its subordinate pseudo-institutions, according to Russian media, is a leader in lawsuits over the payment of various bonuses and allowances. Moreover, million-ruble payments are claimed not only by top officials but also by rank-and-file specialists.
Occupation media counted 39 civil claims from current and former employees of this “ministry”, which represents over 60% of their total staff. In total, according to their calculations, pseudo-officials of Kherson region filed over 200 such claims regarding unpaid payments for 2024.
Among the leaders by number of lawsuits, Russian propagandists also name the so-called Ministry of Labor and Social Protection, Ministry of Education and Science, Ministry of Finance, occupation institutions and enterprises “Biosphere Reserve “Askania Nova”, “Kherson Railway”, “Pallada”, “Kherson Shipbuilding Plant”, “Khersonoblenergo”.
Among occupation local authorities the leaders in such lawsuits are named as the “administrations” of the so-called municipal districts in Kherson, Nova Kakhovka, Kalanchak, Oleshky, as well as certain structures of the occupation administrations of Henichesk, Skadovsk, Nyzhni Sirohozy and Hola Prystan. Some of these pseudo-institutions, as is known, have not been operating since 2022-2023 – after the liberation of Kherson and the flight of occupation officials deeper into the region. Nevertheless, this did not prevent them from also claiming their slice of the pie in the form of handsome payments.
Why did this become possible? As is known, in 2022-2023 the Russians paid considerable money to those who agreed to work for them. Government Resolution of the Russian Federation No. 2571 dated December 31, 2022 allowed significantly higher payments to be set for officials in the TOT of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
However, from autumn 2023, after the creation of pseudo-authorities on the TOT modeled on the Russian system, the “attraction of unprecedented generosity” began to be rolled back. The Russians began to demand that traitor Volodymyr Saldo and other local henchmen bring the salary level of “officials” to the level of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. From 2024 they allowed them an allowance of 5% of the base salary and a bonus of 50 thousand rubles per month “for performing especially important and complex tasks”.
This led to the average salary of occupation TOP-officials collapsing to approximately 180 thousand rubles per month already by February 2024. And from January 2025 it became even lower – around 115 thousand rubles per month.
At the same time the Russians managed to employ a considerable number of officials in the TOT of Kherson region with allowances of 150% of the salary, monthly allowances of 20%, quarterly bonuses of 90% of the salary. And the chaos in the pseudo-power structures led to violations of “labor law norms”. On the basis of which the so-called officials can now extract unpaid millions for themselves.
And the “courts” accommodate them. Despite the fact that, as occupation media write, the pseudo-officials have no legal grounds for these payments.
Kantsir, Skopich, Hryhoriev and others
Who else among the occupation TOP-officials took advantage of the opportunity to extract additional millions of rubles from the Russians? Russian media name the following.
29-year-old Artur Kantsir, a Russian citizen, native of Kherson. In the past he was an ally of the eliminated traitor Kyrylo Stremousov, fought against Ukraine as part of the “Viking” detachment of Russian neo-Nazi Oleksiy Milchakov. In the TOT of Kherson region he headed the apparatus of the head of the occupation regional duma, traitor Tetyana Tomilina. At the end of 2024 Kantsir once again went to fight against Ukrainians as a volunteer in the so-called “SVO”.
Together with Kantsir four of his former subordinates filed claims in the pseudo-courts.
Officials of the occupation agricultural ministry of Kherson region sued over bonuses and allowances: collaborator Igor Hryhoriev, first deputy “minister”; Kherson native Olena Holovkova, chief accountant, head of the department of financial policy and state support; resident of Tavriysk Yuriy Shybaev, head of the department of fisheries and monitoring of aquatic bioresources; collaborator Oleksiy Skopich, head of the department of land relations, food and processing industry; Oleksandr Lopatko, deputy head of the department of animal husbandry and development of small farming; Oleksandr Koshevyi, former head of the department of strategic development of rural territories and water resources; and others.
Russian media suspect that the goal of these lawsuits may be to drive certain pseudo-ministries and structures to bankruptcy, or to replace their leaders.
However, the reason may be much simpler – in the elemental greed of the Russians’ henchmen and their desire to grab as much money from them as possible.
Oleksandr Kapiy