The police must bring the Kherson Regional Council deputy Volodymyr Khvostov (Servant of the People) to the Kherson City Court.
This decision was made by Judge Lyudmyla Valihurska on December 2.
The deputy did not appear at the court hearings on November 5 and December 2, 2025, although he knew the date and place of the hearing.
At the same time, the court established that motions to postpone the court proceedings had been submitted by the defense counsel due to Khvostov’s being on an extended business trip.
This is already the second long business trip that prevents the deputy from attending court. In October he had already informed the judge that he would be abroad for an extended period. On November 17, he again issued an order sending himself on a business trip to Poland, Germany and Austria from 27.11.2025 to 15.12.2025.
The judge again suspended the time limits but issued another ruling which, it seems, will put an end to the deputy’s evasion of the court.
Despite the stated reasons for non-appearance, the court decided that these reasons are not valid and Volodymyr Khvostov is not deprived of the possibility of participating remotely in the court proceedings, given similar remote participation in hearings by both the prosecutor and the defense.
Thus Judge Valihurska concluded that the deputy is abusing procedural rights, and therefore is intentionally evading attendance at court.
And she obliged the police to bring the deputy to the court hearing.
She scheduled it for December 17.
Execution of the ruling to effect the bringing was entrusted to the Department of Strategic Investigations in the Kherson region of the Department of Strategic Investigations of the National Police of Ukraine.
The case concerns proceedings that on October 22, 2025 were received by the Kherson City Court. The court began examining materials regarding the commission of an administrative offense related to corruption, namely the submission of knowingly false information by the deputy in his declaration.
The essence of the case is simple. An authorized NACP official found that in the 2022 declaration Khvostov indicated inaccurate data regarding the value of over one hundred plots of land, five apartments in Kyiv and two in Kherson.
He also understated the value of his 2017 Land Rover, indicating that the car was worth 3.4 million UAH, although, according to the Vehicle Registry (ЄДР ТЗ), the car is worth 4.5 million UAH.
In addition, Khvostov did not declare a pleasure boat, the value of which could have been 533,000 UAH, allegedly because it remained in temporarily occupied territory.
Such an offense entails a fine ranging from 17,000 to 42,500 hryvnias.
But, it seems, the deputy does not want to pay the fine, so his defense counsel in October filed two motions. The first was to postpone the consideration of the case due to Volodymyr Khvostov being on an official business trip until December 1, 2025.
The lawyer confirmed this 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.
At the court hearing the prosecutor asked the court to suspend the time limit for consideration of the administrative offense case for the duration of the business trip.
The court granted this motion and suspended the time limits.
Note that the period 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. That is, the defense counsel tried to delay the case as much as possible to free Khvostov from liability.
The second motion concerned a change of court.
By attorney Buryak a motion was filed to send the case on bringing 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, for the purpose of ensuring promptness and efficiency of criminal proceedings, a case may be transferred for consideration to another court at the defendant’s place of residence.
The attorney also noted that Kherson is in close proximity to the combat zone, and that if the case were heard in the Kherson City Court it could create additional risks for all participants in the trial.
The court denied the attorney, stating that the offense clearly falls within the territorial jurisdiction of the Kherson City Court, and that the defense had not presented any exceptional circumstances.