The occupation governor of the part of Kherson region seized by Russia, Volodymyr Saldo, may have secretly married his former secretary Svitlana Zaporozhska a year ago.
We reached this conclusion after analyzing information from leaked Russian databases and overlaying it with information about Saldo’s whereabouts on those days.
According to MOST’s sources from his former inner circle, in 2022 he left Kherson with Svitlana Zaporozhska and their relationship was no secret to anyone.
Many people in pre-war Kherson knew her as the secretary and assistant of Volodymyr Saldo. That is exactly how her Ukrainian number is labeled in the phone books of many people. In 2023 several Ukrainian media outlets wrote about Saldo’s connections with several women, among whom was Zaporozhska.
And on June 14, 2025, Svitlana, according to the leaked Russian databases, got married in Moscow. Someone even saved her Russian phone number +79782988174 as “Svetlana wedding msk 14.06.2025”.
We could not determine whether she was in Moscow on those days via social networks or other sources. However, we did find out that Volodymyr Saldo was in Moscow and the Moscow region on those days.
On June 12 he celebrated his 69th birthday, and on June 15 he visited the international festival “Shkin Opera” in Kolomna together with Putin’s aide Vladimir Medinsky and senator Konstantin Basyuk, as written on his Telegram. Saldo’s activity in the days leading up to the celebrations decreased in occupation media. So, most likely, he was resting somewhere.
On June 16 Saldo signed a decree on an emergency situation in several occupied left-bank communities due to drought, but most likely not in Henichesk.
Because by June 19 he was already at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum. And next to him in the photo we see Svitlana Zaporozhska, who by her position would hardly have had reason to be there.
Since 2023 Saldo has invented for her the position of head of the Kherson region representation in Crimea.
Thus, in December 2022 he employed Svitlana in Simferopol, where she has been living with her daughter since 2022.
However, since July 17, 2023, information in the Russian registers that Zaporozhska heads the representation has been hidden. For a long time Svitlana herself was hidden from cameras and the media.
Officially she lived in Simferopol at 25 Kuibysheva Street, but in reality, at least until 2024, she lived at 5a Sovkhoznyi Lane, apt. 71.
It was to this address that the courier from the adult store “Pink Rabbit” delivered her order in 2024.
Both houses are located in neighborhoods very similar to neighborhoods in Kherson.
Svitlana Zaporozhska moves around Crimea in a “non-feminine” Volkswagen Caravelle minibus with license plate R653EA48.
She began appearing publicly alongside Saldo roughly about a year ago. She started being shown at various events and meetings, which was not the case before.
Obviously, Saldo’s and Zaporozhska’s wedding was not announced anywhere. They do not appear together in any database and do not have joint property.
Although in Ukrainian Kherson, from which they fled together with the Russians, four land plots are registered to Svitlana, the real owner of which could be Volodymyr Saldo.
One of them is located near Saldo’s former house on Ostriv on Morska Pikhota (Mariia Fortus) Street, 146. It is a plot near the now-destroyed restaurant “Terasa”.
In addition, she holds the right to lease three plots in the residential cooperative “Eco Park”. The cooperative partly belonged to the Semenchev family, where the elite residential complex Club City was being built on the Dnipro bank. Three contracts for the right to develop the land plots (superficies agreements) were registered to Zaporozhska. Obviously, this was a share of Volodymyr Saldo.
Of course, due to the secrecy of the marriage and the relationship in general, unlike Volodymyr Saldo, Svitlana Zaporozhska has not been sanctioned by Ukraine or other countries, and she can freely own assets in Russia, in the occupied territories, abroad and even in Ukraine.