Million-dollar salary and social housing in Germany: what is known from Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin’s declaration

12 March 2024 16:50

At the end of January this year, Prosecutor General of Ukraine Andriy Kostin submitted his declaration for 2022. Previously, public access to the Register of declarations was closed and civil servants could submit them at their own discretion, saying that “declarants should not waste time filling out and submitting declarations”.

However, at the end of last year, the Verkhovna Rada finally opened access to the documents to everyone. The electronic declarations had to be submitted by 31 January this year, which the Prosecutor General successfully managed – Kostin’s declaration was submitted to the NACP website on 31 January at almost 2 am. Kommersant ukrayinsky decided to find out what is interesting in the so-called “report for 2022” of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine.

One and a half million in salary for the first year of the Great War

Andriy Kostin became Prosecutor General in the summer of 2022, and before that he was the chairman of the Legal Policy Committee, a Servant of the People MP who joined the party on the recommendation of Andriy Yermak.

According to his declaration for 2022, Kostin’s salary was almost one and a half million hryvnias, including UAH 631,769 for his work as a deputy (a quarter of a million in reimbursement for expenses incurred as a deputy) and UAH 835,444 for six months as Prosecutor General of Ukraine.

At the same time, Kostin himself, according to the declaration, remained the owner of the law firm Pravo, which he ran together with his wife, Olga Kostina. Despite the fact that in 2022 the company received 260 thousand dollars in revenue, according to OpenDataBot, it continues to operate and is registered in Odesa, in an elite building where one square metre costs from 1.5 to 2 thousand dollars.

The company is still managed by the Prosecutor General’s wife, Olha Kostina, despite the fact that, according to her declaration, she lived in social housing in Germany at least in 2022.

Bavaria, social housing, savings

As noted in the Prosecutor General’s declaration, his entire family, including his wife Olga, son Michael and daughter Elisa, received the right to temporarily reside in social housing in the Tegernheim community in Bavaria, Germany, on 12 April 2022.

It is not known why the family chose social housing, because according to the declaration, at that time Olha had almost 12,000 euros and more than $11,000 in cash. And she had $12,500 in her bank accounts. Kostin himself also had savings – 115,000 euros in cash – and for some reason rented a room at the Ukraina Hotel, although the family has its own accommodation, though not in Kyiv, but in Odesa.

In Ukraine, Kostina owns four apartments in Odesa (48 m2, 121 m2, 130 m2, 107 m2), a house in the village of Koshary near Odesa, and a land plot of more than 1,500 m2 in the same village

Monaco, Morozyuk and Alexander Blok’s poems

In August last year, a scandal shook social media – Andriy Kostin’s daughter complained about the boring life in Scotland-Finland and asked to “go home to Monaco”.

Despite the fact that after the scandal she apologised and called her statements a “joke”, Anastasia (the name she uses on her social media) still lives abroad and is trying to become an insta-influencer, so she “improves her Ukrainian” to adapt to every “barking dog that runs by”.

The girl also did not understand the hate against Sonia Morozyuk and asked to clarify the situation, because Kostin’s daughter “is still attending social events in Kyiv”.

In the meantime, the Prosecutor General’s daughter lives, in her own words, between Sweden, Kyiv and the Åland Islands, while his son Mikhail hardly ever uses social media. His last post was published in July 2023. In it, Mikhail said that he was constantly crying over “tender poems” that were “beautiful and sad”, probably referring to the Russian poet Alexander Blok, whose poem Kostin’s son illustrated his message with.