The Department for Civil Protection and Defense Work of the Kherson Regional State Administration was supposed to be a pillar for the region’s security, especially after the start of the full-scale invasion. However, over the past three years the position of director of the CPDW department has become a “black mark” for its leaders, and the department itself has sunk into scandals and criminal cases.
Four out of five directors who headed the agency since 2022 have already become subjects of criminal proceedings, or may be involved in dishonest schemes.
MOST investigated the chronology of this “curse” – from Oleksiy Sulimov to Yevhen Pisotsky.
Sulimov’s collaborationism
Oleksiy Sulimov headed the CPDW department longer than any of the figures in our story – from 2013 to 2022.
Instead of confronting the enemy, Sulimov chose to cooperate with the occupiers.
Already in September 2022 he was employed as deputy director in the occupation Basin Administration of Water Resources of the Lower Dnipro. This structure under Russian control was actively engaged in supplying water to occupied Crimea and organizing the work of the North Crimean Canal administration.
The crime of Sulimov became generally known in March 2023, and already in May the Security Service of Ukraine completed the investigation of his case. The former director is accused of collaborationism, for which he faces up to ten years in prison.
Since 2024 Oleksiy Sulimov has been wanted, and the criminal proceedings against him were suspended by a court decision.
Lazarev’s uniform
Next to lead the department came the former deputy mayor of Mykolaiv, Dmytro Lazarev.
Lazarev was appointed head of the CPDW department in October 2022, but his leadership lasted only a few months and, according to law enforcement, left a significant loss.
According to the investigation, at the end of 2022 he facilitated the victory of entrepreneurs he himself had chosen in a tender for the purchase of uniforms for the territorial defense.
After that, instead of high-quality military clothing approved by the Ministry of Defense, cheap and poor-quality uniforms arrived, causing the state losses of more than 18,7 mln UAH.
The story there is unusually complicated, so the court must sort it out. It is only known that the initiator of the uniform procurement was the President’s Office, which pushed local administrations, and, according to our source in the OVA, provided the firms that were to win. At the same time, we do not assert that Lazarev was a victim, because he had the right not to sign the documents.
At the beginning of 2023 Lazarev was dismissed. Almost immediately after that the newly appointed head of the Kherson OVA, Oleksandr Prokudin, publicly announced the violations found in the department, and in 2024 Dmytro Lazarev officially was suspected of official negligence.
The trial of his case is still ongoing.
21 days of scandal-free Belyaev
After Lazarev, the CPDW department was briefly headed by the former deputy head of the Main Department of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in Kherson region, Volodymyr Belyaev.
He did not have time to earn himself a criminal case, even if he had wanted to, because he headed the agency for only 21 days and it became a brief pause before the next loud scandal.
Kozyrev’s “Tithe”
Pavlo Kozyrev came to the CPDW department from the construction business almost immediately after Oleksandr Prokudin was appointed head of the OVA. Kozyrev’s company has repeatedly been involved in overpayment scandals.
He was the first head of the agency to be detained while in office.
On January 9, 2025 Kozyrev was detained on suspicion of bribery and extortion.
The scheme for which he received suspicion was classic – a “kickback” for a repair contract.
The investigation established that Kozyrev, acting jointly with the deputy head of HOKARS, demanded from the director of a Kherson company 10% of the contract sum for its conclusion and unobstructed acceptance of the work.
The total amount of the bribe mentioned in the court ruling amounted to 199,000 UAH, which was transferred in tranches.
Worst of all, the entrepreneur was directly threatened that if he refused to pay the “tithe” he would no longer be able to work in the Kherson region.
By the way, according to MOST, the entrepreneur who reported the kickback is no longer being awarded contracts by the OVA.
On January 13 Pavlo Kozyrev was removed from office, and later was removed from the Regional Defense Council.
After Kozyrev’s dismissal, a working group was formed at the Kherson OVA that was to study the work of the department on civil protection and defense work of the Kherson Regional State Administration… And it did study it.
Pisotsky’s nets
On January 13, 2025 the baton of leadership was taken by former prosecutor Yevhen Pisotsky. At first he was acting director, and in November officially headed the CPDW department.
Practically immediately after Pisotsky’s official appointment, a loud criminal case fell on the department’s officials. This time regarding the embezzlement of budget funds in the purchase of anti-drone nets.
Currently the law enforcement version is as follows: current and former officials of the department concluded contracts totaling 32.5 mln UAH with a group of sham sole proprietors-“fronts”. These sole proprietors bought nets from real suppliers and resold them to the department at a significantly inflated price. As a result the department overpaid at least 6.4 mln UAH.
As MOST journalists found out, Yevhen Pisotsky, already being acting director, signed at least two contracts with front entrepreneurs who figure in this scheme.
In addition, under his leadership a contract was concluded and then hastily terminated for 6.3 mln UAH with an entrepreneur from Lutsk, Nataliya Borshchevych, who was previously suspected of producing and distributing pornography.
The agreement with her was terminated, citing reputational risks. That is the reason Yevhen Pisotsky gave us.
And although there have been no official charges against Pisotsky in the nets case, tongues in the OVA are already actively discussing that he might be made the scapegoat in the scandalous story with inflated prices.
Sulimov, Lazarev, Kozyrev, Pisotsky. Four leaders who found themselves at the epicenter of loud scandals in the hardest time for the Kherson region.
The history of the Department for Civil Protection and Defense Work of the Kherson Regional State Administration – this is not just a coincidence. It is a systemic failure that requires not just the dismissal of individual officials, but a complete reboot of the agency. The big question is whether there is the political will for that?