Recently the information space was shaken by news about the exposure by Mykolaiv law enforcement of a scheme to embezzle budget funds in the purchase of anti-drone nets for the Kherson region. According to preliminary calculations by investigators, the losses may exceed 6.4 million UAH.
This information outraged the public, because the topic of Russian drones for Kherson and the region is currently one of the most painful. According to the latest data from MVA, since the beginning of the year more than 1,500 people in the Kherson region have been affected, most due to drone attacks. Among the wounded and the dead are children.
Last summer the head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration Oleksandr Prokudin said that the region plans to protect 264 kilometers of routes with anti-drone nets. At that time, according to him, this would cost 300 million UAH. At the same time, according to the same Prokudin, there was no possibility to allocate such funds from the regional budget.
At that same period, when the head of the RMA spoke a lot about the need for nets, the difficulty of obtaining them and the high cost of all anti-drone measures, events were taking place in the ODA offices that a few months later would become the basis for a criminal proceeding under Part 4 of Article 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (misappropriation, embezzlement of property or seizure of it by abuse of official position, committed on a large scale or by an organized group).
Thus, according to investigators, current and former officials of one of the departments (which is not specified in the court documents, – MOST), developed a scheme to appropriate budget funds. They signed contracts totaling 32.5 million UAH with a group of sham sole proprietors (FOPs) for the supply of netting and fasteners.
FOP - a sole proprietor is a business entity, not a legal person. Registration grants the status of an entrepreneur, which gives the right to conduct business, provide services, sell goods and hire employees. They can operate under either the general or the simplified taxation system, which provides for payment of a single tax. The main advantage is the simplicity of registration and liquidation, a simplified reporting system and less bureaucracy compared to a legal entity.
Law enforcement suspects that these FOPs were used as “fronts”. They bought nets from real suppliers and resold them to the Kherson ODA department at significantly inflated prices.
The FOPs that signed contracts with the department purchased the nets from a company whose name was also hidden in the court documents, as well as from a number of other FOPs from various regions (Vinnytsia, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk region and Kharkiv).
After that the netting was resold to the Kherson ODA department itself at much higher prices. According to investigators’ calculations, the combined profit of all participants in the supply chain exceeded 25%,
Investigators now intend to examine twelve contracts that were concluded with seven sham entrepreneurs.
Thus, having analyzed the data from the court documents, MOST journalists were able to identify both the department that ordered the nets and the FOPs who, according to the police, are accomplices in the scheme.
As we suggested earlier, the customer was the Department for Civil Protection and Defense Work of the Kherson ODA. Current and former officials of this department are subjects of the investigation. Who exactly – is not yet known, because the law enforcement officers also hid all the names under the “secret of the investigation”.
However it is reliably known that the case involves Kherson-based FOPs – Andriy Romanyuk, Yevhen Churkin, Vyacheslav Zhernovyi and Oleksandr Chornyavskyi, Mykola Rozdorozhniuk and Marina Andriievska from Stepanivka and Serhii Rulov from Snihurivka in the Mykolaiv region.
Andriy Romanyuk
As investigators established, the Department for Civil Protection and Defense Work of the Kherson ODA concluded four direct contracts with Andriy Romanyuk totaling almost 5.2 million UAH.
There is no open access to these agreements, because, as indicated on Prozorro, they are all protected by the “confidentiality of martial law” and will be published 90 days after its cancellation. This is how most contracts in this story avoided publicity, but not all.
Andriy Romanyuk registered as a FOP in 2017 with a KVED of “retail trade of iron products, building materials and sanitary-technical products in specialized stores”.
In 2019 Romanyuk began receiving small contracts from the Kherson Agrarian University. After that he temporarily ceased entrepreneurial activity and in October 2023 resumed it. Since then his services have most often been used by the Department for Civil Protection and Defense Work of the Kherson ODA, HOKARS and the Main Directorate of the National Police in Kherson region. Overall since 2019 he has received orders totaling 13.8 million UAH.
In addition to operating as a FOP, from 2011 to 2016 Romanyuk was the head of LLC “Pivdenpromresurs”. After him the company was headed by the former head of administration of the Executive Committee of the Kherson City Council Tetyana Turchyna. In 2016 this company ceased operations.
In April 2024 Andriy Romanyuk founded LLC “Bazis Bud” in Kherson, which is engaged in retail trade of iron products. Several times the company received contracts to supply geotextiles and nets for the same department.
Yevhen Churkin
The department signed only one contract with Yevhen Churkin, but immediately for 3.8 million UAH. The agreement is also hidden due to martial law.
Yevhen Churkin is an ordinary pensioner. He registered his FOP back in 2018 with a KVED of “Maintenance and repair of motor vehicles”, but until this year he did not participate in public procurements.
Interestingly, the phone number that is the contact for his FOP is also the contact for three other Kherson companies – LLC “Good Truck Service”, LLC “Avtoplaneta Kherson”, LLC “Realto”, as well as the charitable organization “BF POMI “Planet of Thought””. All these LLCs are associated with the family of Ukrainian businessman and former head of the state concern “Ukroboronprom” Roman Romanov, and the charity fund’s email literally reads as “yuryst@avtoplaneta”. The phone number itself belongs to lawyer Olena Danyliuk.
Olena was a lawyer for Roman Romanov’s companies and an assistant to Member of Parliament Viktoriya Vagner.
Vyacheslav Zhernovyi
Zhernovyi received two contracts from the department totaling almost 4.5 million UAH.
Of all the figures he has the most work experience. His FOP has existed since 2004 and operates under the KVED “Metalworking and coating of metals”.
Vyacheslav Zhernovyi has participated in public procurements since 2017. Mostly he received small orders – supplying metal, bricks, etc.
In 2017–2018 Zhernovyi worked exclusively with the Main Directorate of the National Police in Kherson region. At that time the current head of the Kherson OVA Oleksandr Prokudin worked as the deputy head of the agency.
Vyacheslav Zhernovyi is also a co-founder of LLC “Dominant Invest”, LLC “Betonenergy”, and PE “Khersonsetka”. The latter in 2018 supplied nets to Daryivska Correctional Colony No. 10.
Oleksandr Chornyavskyi
Chornyavskyi received only one contract from the Kherson ODA department worth 5.1 million UAH.
He registered as a FOP in March 2024 and almost immediately became interested in public procurements and started receiving contracts.
Thus, in one day HOKARS awarded him twelve small tenders at once, after which he concluded several more contracts with the Housing and Maintenance Department of the city of Kherson, and then moved to a “higher level” and in less than a month received seven contracts from the Department for Civil Protection and Defense Work.
In total since registering his FOP Chornyavskyi “won” tenders worth 10.8 million UAH, and then… ceased activity.
Interestingly, the person who so successfully ran the business did not pay for heating from 2013 to 2021 and owed 16.6 thousand UAH, because of which MKP “Khersonteploenergo” sued Oleksandr Chornyavskyi, and the court obliged him to repay the debts.
In fact, the procurement that Chornyavskyi received is almost unique, because the contract between the customer and the contractor was not hidden; it is publicly available on Prozorro. There you can see that the contract with Chornyavskyi was signed by Yevhen Pisotskyi. At that time he was still acting director of the department.
Mykola Rozdorozhniuk
Mykola Rozdorozhniuk suddenly and without competition received one of the largest “netting contracts” in this case – 9.5 million UAH.
He registered as a FOP in May 2024 with the primary KVED “Preparatory works at a construction site”. Almost immediately after registration he began receiving contracts in Kherson and the region – supplying gabions, providing repair and installation services.
In a little more than a year he received orders totaling 11.5 million UAH. Obviously the largest contract in Rozdorozhniuk’s entrepreneurial career was the contract with the Department for Civil Protection and Defense Work of the Kherson ODA.
Marina Andriievska
Marina Andriievska also received one contract, but somewhat smaller – worth 4.8 million UAH.
She has been engaged in entrepreneurial activity since 2015. Since 2020 her main activity is listed as “Retail trade of iron products, building materials and sanitary-technical products in specialized stores”.
At the end of 2021 Andriievska received her first contract. All information about this procurement on Prozorro is hidden. It is not even known who announced it.
However the real business started in 2024, when Andriievska began regularly participating in public procurements and signing contracts with the Housing and Maintenance Department of the city of Kherson and the Department for Civil Protection and Defense Work of the Kherson ODA. That is how she received numerous contracts totaling over 6 million UAH.
It is worth noting that Marina Andriievska and Mykola Rozdorozhniuk are relatives. First, they have the same registration address in Stepanivka, and second, in many contacts Andriievska is listed as Marina Rozdorozhnyuk. And her patronymic is Mykolaivna.
Serhii Rulov
Of all the FOPs listed above Serhii Rulov received the two smallest contracts – for 500 thousand UAH and 232 thousand UAH.
Rulov began his entrepreneurial activity in 2012. Since 2018 he has been engaged in retail trade of food products, beverages and tobacco products – this is his main type of activity. However among his additional activities is also “retail trade of iron products”.
From 2017 until the end of 2020 Serhii Rulov received contracts exclusively in the Mykolaiv region – supplying building materials, equipment and various machinery, but in September this year he suddenly and without competition received two contracts to supply anti-drone nets for the Kherson region, which became the most expensive in his career.
How MOST saved Borshchevych from criminal proceedings
It is worth recalling the scandalously well-known entrepreneur from Lutsk, Natalia Borshchevych. She was suspected of producing and distributing pornography.
On the day the Kherson ODA department signed contracts with Andriy Romanyuk and Mykola Rozdorozhniuk, Borshchevych also received her contract to supply nets worth 6.3 million UAH, but due to MOST’s publications and public resonance her contract was terminated, citing reputational risks. That is the reason for terminating the agreement given to us by the head of the department Yevhen Pisotskyi.
Because the agreement with Borshchevych was terminated and she effectively did not receive the money, she does not figure in this case and continues her activities calmly. For example, recently the State Judicial Administration of the Kherson region ordered a generator from her for 40 thousand UAH.
Closed roles in an open case
The saddest thing in this story, which is obviously only beginning, is that, according to law enforcement agencies, the involved FOPs effectively did not conduct any economic activity and performed only a nominal function, and their details were used for the “cash-out” of budget funds.
Thus, if you add up all the contracts received by the seven FOPs just this year, it amounts to 37.3 million UAH. But we cannot assert that kickbacks and price inflation were built into every contract of each FOP. That still needs to be investigated by law enforcement.
And finally we note that in this material we described far from all events and told only about some of the figures we were able to identify, and the main players will still have to be discovered in the future. We hope, in the near future.