Family real estate in the shadows: what the head of the Ministry of Justice Stefanishyna is hiding
28 June 14:18
Olga Stefanishyna is the current Minister of Justice and Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration. She is also an accused in a corruption case that has been going on since 2013. At that time, Stefanishyna worked at the Ministry of Justice, and the head of the department was Olena Lukash. More than 10 years ago, Stefanishyna signed the documents for a tender in which, according to the investigation, the state lost more than $300,000. The long-standing corruption story, despite the fact that the High Anti-Corruption Court is currently hearing it, did not prevent Stefanishyna from becoming deputy prime minister in 2020 and a member of the political council of the Servant of the People in 2021. And finally, last year, to head the Ministry of Justice. Currently, according to our sources, the official’s name is among the likely candidates for the prime minister’s post. So we decided to investigate how Ms. Olha’s career has changed her family’s property status. And we did: the official’s mother’s brand new apartment in a business-class residential complex in the capital, bought four times cheaper than the market value.
This was reported by "Komersant Ukrainian" with reference to hromadske.
The tender of Olena Lukash’s time
In 2013, during the time of Viktor Yanukovych, the Ministry of Justice was headed by Olena Lukash, an associate of Andriy Portnov, who was recently shot dead in Spain. She is remembered for calling the Heavenly Hundred a “made-up story” and for being under EU sanctions. The current Minister of Justice, Olha Stefanishyna, was then the head of the European Integration Legal Support Unit at the Department of European Integration of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine.
In the same year, the Ministry of Justice officials held a tender for a comparative analysis of Ukrainian legislation with European legislation – one page of such an analysis cost the state the state from 1,400 to 4,500 hryvnias (at that time, it was from 182 to 546 dollars). The total losses from this tender, according to according to the investigation, amounted to 2,523,000 hryvnias of budget funds (at the exchange rate of the time, it was about 315,000 dollars).
After Euromaidan in 2015, Olena Lukash was notified of the suspicion. Stefanishyna later claimedthat the case was stalled, “because no sane investigator or prosecutor dared to move forward with it.” But in 2019, she was served with a suspicion.
According to journalists, Olena Lukash was not a member of the tender committee of the Ministry of Justice, but only approved its composition. Olga Stefanishyna, on the other hand, was directly familiarized with the tender documents and signed the acts of work performed.
Hromadske has obtained the interrogation report of Ms. Stefanishyna from 2014. In response to the investigator’s question about whether she had really signed the acts of acceptance and transfer of services provided under the questionable tender, the official replied: “Yes, the transfer and acceptance certificates presented to me for review were certified by me on my behalf.”
Despite her new career successes, the minister was charged with misappropriation or embezzlement of property through abuse of office. The minister did not attend the next court hearing, which was to take place on June 24, 2025, based on a request from the Cabinet of Ministers for her absence due to business trips to the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Kingdom of Belgium.
Savings: from Yanukovych to the present day
Olha Stefanishyna has been working on European integration since 2007, when she joined the Ministry of Justice as a 22-year-old. When Viktor Yanukovych came to power in 2010, she began holding senior positions there. Under Poroshenko, she moved to the Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers. There, from 2017 to 2019, the official did not declare any savings or assets. Her income increased from 386 980 uAH (in 2016) to 767 295 uAH (in 2019).
In the last parliamentary elections, she unsuccessfully ran for the Verkhovna Rada as a candidate of Hroisman’s Ukrainian Strategy.
The year 2020 became a decisive year for Olha Stefanishyna. At first, she worked at Ilyashev & Partners Law Firm and opened a sole proprietorship in legal activities, which lasted less than six months. And in June 2020, she became the Vice Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine and joined the National Security and Defense Council. Later, she was even included in the political council of the Servant of the People party.
The official reported on her income in 2020 in 2021. First, on March 26, she notedthat she earned a total of UAH 1,061,043. The same amount was was confirmed on March 29 in an allegedly “corrected” declaration. And on November 12, 2021 she clarifiedthat she actually earned a total of UAH 715,281 in 2020. There were similar inaccuracies with her savings. When submitting her declaration on March 26, 2021, Ms. Olha did not indicate any savings, and in the corrected declaration submitted three days later, the official “found” 250,000 hryvnias and $12,000 in cash. It was then that the woman first indicated the existence of any savings in more than a decade in public service.
From 2021 to the present day, Stefanishyna has received only her salary and alimony for the upbringing of her daughter and son. In total, from UAH 1,111,720 (in 2021) to UAH 1,375,382 (in 2024). Over the years, the official has managed to save 665,337 hryvnias.
An apartment that doesn’t exist?
Olha Stefanishyna was born in Odesa. According to her, her parents, Nadiia and Anatolii Kravtsi, live there.
“This is the city of my childhood, the city where I always rest, regardless of whether it’s a business trip or a trip to my parents,”said the minister said in 2020.
But Olga Stefanishyna works in the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and also heads the Office for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration. Both institutions are located in Kyiv, so it would be logical for their head to have some kind of capital housing. And Stefanishyna has been declaring that since 2016 has been declaring nadiia Kravets allegedly bought her mother’s apartment in Kyiv in 2008. The area of the apartment is 74 square meters. This is the only Kyiv real estate that Stefanishyna has ever listed in her declarations.
However, according to the Register of Rights to Real Estate, the official’s mother does not have an apartment of this size, bought in 2008, and never had one. Although the real estate registry in Ukraine became fully operational at the beginning of the last decade, so some old properties may not be listed there. At the same time, we saw all the other apartments of Ms. Olha’s family, which were registered in the same period. But we did not see her mother’s 74-square-meter apartment in Kyiv. The official’s mother, Nadiia Kravets, said in a commentary to journalists that she did indeed have a two-room apartment in Kyiv. Below is a dialog with Ms. Kravets:
– Your daughter declares that she lives in your apartment in Kyiv. We got a little confused when we were studying the declarations of officials, how big is this apartment?
– 76 square meters.
– 76 ?
– Yes , it is.
– She simply declares an apartment of 74 square meters.
– The two-room apartment is a standard one. Maybe it’s 74… Why are you asking me? Ask her.
– This is officially your apartment .
– It is my apartment, yes.
At the same time, in 2013, Nadiia Kravets bought an apartment in theCosmopolitan business class residential complex in Kyiv. A year earlier, the same apartment was officially valued at almost a million hryvnias, or more than $100,000 at the exchange rate of the time.
The total area of the apartment in the Cosmopolitan residential complex was 150 square meters, of which 74.5 square meters was residential.
One might assume that Olga Stefanishyna, when she mentioned her mother’s 74-square-meter apartment in her declaration, meant this particular apartment. But in 2018, Nadiya Kravets sold it. Officially, it was sold for 2,545,925 hryvnias ($97,000 at the time). By the way, the other seller was a relative of the minister’s ex-husband, Vasyl Stefanyshyn. He owned half of the apartment.
According to realtor Oleksiy Hnuchikh, $97,000 is not a very realistic price. According to his estimates, in 2018, such real estate could have cost from $225,000 ($1,500 per square meter).
Despite the fact that in 2018 Nadiia Kravets sold her only Kyiv apartment, which is reflected in the registry, her daughter has not stopped declaring “74 square meters” in the capital.
Business class residential complex at the beginning of a full-scale war
Olga Stefanishyna’s father, Vitaliy Kravets, lives in Odesa, where he runs his own business. He owns three apartments there. Most of them were inherited. So far, everything is logical.
Suddenly, in 2024, the man bought a parking space and two small rooms in the Lvivska Square business class residential complex in the center of Kyiv. According to the contract, Kravets spent approximately 650,000 hryvnias, or $16,000 at the exchange rate of the time. Despite the fact that only one parking space can be purchased here for at least for at least $37,000.
He saved twice as much! But why would a man who has lived in Odesa all his life need a parking space in a residential complex at the Golden Gate in Kyiv?
Actually, because two years earlier, in October 2022, Mr. Vitalii’s wife and the Minister’s mother, Nadiya Kravets, bought a three-bedroom apartment in this business class residential complex. The area of the apartment is about 100 square meters.
Officially, it was purchased for UAH 3,042,692 – $83,205 at the time of purchase. Realtor Oleksiy Glunychyk calls this price unrealistic.
“It couldn’t be. At least $2,000 per square meter was sold on Kudryavska Street,” he told hromadske.
And here is the minimum price from the developer for three-bedroom apartments in this residential complex as of October 2022.
That is, the market price of this apartment would have to be at least UAH 12,000,000, or $300,110. This is how Ms. Nadiia managed to buy a three-bedroom apartment in the center of the capital at the Golden Gate for almost four times less, at least according to the documents. During a conversation with the minister’s mother, Nadiya Kravets, it became clear that her daughter uses her apartment. But it is not known which one.
– But in 2022, you bought a three-room apartment in Kyiv…
– Look, I don’t want to answer all these questions…
– You still have one apartment, but the 74-square-meter and 76-square-meter apartments are not in the register.
– This apartment has been yours for a long time. I think the children are also registered there….
– As for your apartment, do you use it or does your daughter use it? Or who?
– My daughter uses it.
– Is this the apartment you bought in 2022?
– Goodbye.
So where did the money come from?
Olha Stefanishyna’s mother, Nadiia Kravets, has never had any business. She also never had a single individual entrepreneur.
The official’s father, Vitaliy Kravets, does have a real business. He is the founder of two Odesa-based companies “Virazh-1” і “Bystryna. Both companies specialize in training drivers.
According to the YouControl system, Bystryna LLC has never submitted any reports to the fiscal authorities. However, the turnover of Virazh-1 LLC has amounted to UAH 27,188,600 since 2013 and is still in effect today. The company cooperates with the main service center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Moreover, the list of cars used by her father’s company includes a car owned by Olga Stefanishyna – a 2009 Toyota RAV4. The official lists it in her declaration. This raises another question: does Ms. Minister use another car at work in Kyiv and why is it not listed in her declaration?
As for Virage-1 LLC, despite millions of dollars in turnover, the company has shown more losses than profits during its operation.
At the same time, the absence of these profits did not prevent Stefanishyna’s mother from buying a 150-square-meter apartment in Kyiv in 2013 with a preliminary official value of almost a million hryvnias, or $100,000.
In 2018, the woman sold the apartment for 2,545,925 hryvnias ($97,000 at the time). And this could partially explain how the family got 3,042,692 hryvnias ($83,205) to buy a new home in Kyiv in 2022.
But, first, it is obvious that the family had other expenses over the years. Second, both prices are not market prices, according to experts.
Systemic problems with declaration
So, for the last almost 10 years, Olha Stefanishyna has been declaring some phantom apartment in Kyiv that allegedly belongs to her mother, although, according to the real estate register, her mother never had such an apartment. At the same time, the official did not indicate either her mother’s real 150-square-meter apartment in Kyiv, which was sold in 2018, or her current 100-square-meter apartment, which was bought in 2022. The prices for both apartments, according to the expert, are not market prices and are questionable.
The official also does not mention any other car, except for the one used by her father’s Odesa-based company. So it is unknown what she actually uses to get around. And if it is a company car, it is subject to declaration if it is used for most of the year or for personal purposes.
There are a lot of questions about Olga Stefanishyna’s declaration. We called and wrote to Ms. Stefanishyna to get answers to them. Unfortunately, she did not respond to us. We wanted to clarify a few things.
For example, about the 76.1-square-meter apartment in Odesa that the 22-year-old official bought on March 29, 2007, officially for 105,294 hryvnias. However, in her declarations until 2020, Olga Stefanishyna did not mention this property, although she was its owner. At the same time, the official declared an apartment bought on the same day and for the same price, but with an area of 65 square meters instead of 76.1 square meters. It’s hard to believe that in four years Stefanishyna added an 11-square-meter balcony or storage room, so it’s likely that she consciously or unconsciously misstated the size of the apartment for several years in a row.
Another example is a 38.9-square-meter apartment in Odesa. At first, Stefanishyna indicatedthat this apartment has been partially owned by her since 2016, and then that the ownership arose in 1997. In any case, according to the real estate register, neither Stefanishyna nor her mother owns such an apartment.
Even more questions are raised by the fact that during all the years of Ms. Stefanishyna’s work in the civil service, her declaration was not fully verified by the NACP. Even though the official is a defendant in a corruption case.
