Evaders, schemers and truants: what is known about officials involved in the land scandal in Kyiv?
28 February 2025 17:47
The Kyiv City State Administration has named the officials who illegally seized the land of the capital’s community. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote about this on his official Telegram channel on February 28.
According to Klitschko, the officials will be dismissed from their positions in the KCSA:
- deputy Head of the KCSA Petro Olenych;
- yuriy Leonov, deputy director of the municipal enterprise “Spetszhilofond”;
- deputy Head of Kyivblagoustriy Oleksiy Mushta;
- head of the Land Commission Mykhailo Terentyev is to resign from his deputy position.
“As we said earlier, the capital’s urban planning and land relations will be reorganized. And not only in these areas. Regarding the high-profile “land case”: the city provides law enforcement officers with all the requested documents and facilitates the investigation,” Vitali Klitschko clarified.
What is known about the defendants in the “land” case
Petro Olenych
Born on July 27, 1982 in Ochakiv, Mykolaiv region. He has a university degree. In 2004, he graduated from the Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts with a degree in Law and received a law degree.
In 2004, he held the position of leading and later chief specialist at the Information Technology Department of the Ministry of Justice. Since 2005, he worked as a chief specialist in the Department of Constitutional Law of the Ministry of Justice.
Since 2008, he has worked as a manager in the Residential Real Estate Department of KDD Group N.V. (Kyiv Donbas Development Group), which was bought in 2011 by former Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc and Party of Regions MP Andriy Verevsky.
In 2009-2012, he worked as the deputy head of the Kyiv regional branch of the State Enterprise “Center of the State Land Cadastre”. Prior to that, he worked as a paid assistant to former MPs from the Party of Regions Iryna Berezhna (6th and 7th convocation) and Oleksiy Zhuravko (6th convocation). Olenych explained that at that time it was impossible to get into the civil service through a competition, and in order to work at the StateGeoCadastre, he had to get a job as an assistant to a certain MP. He assures that he was an assistant to the mentioned MPs from one to three weeks and did not even communicate with them.
In 2012-2014, he worked as the head of the Main Department of the State Land Agency in Sumy region.
In 2017, he started working at the Kyiv City State Administration and in the same year was appointed deputy director of the Department of Information and Communication Technologies under Yuriy Nazarov.
In 2018, before moving to the Department of Land Resources, he was appointed Director of the KCSA Department of Registration for less than a month.
In 2019, Olenych signed a collective submission from the Department of Land Resources to the Kyiv City Council Commission, on the basis of which the members of the Commission renewed the lease of the land plot, which was transferred without the right to capital development, despite the fact that the Edelweiss residential complex of former MP and developer Maksym Mykytas and businessman Karl Volokh was being built on it. The Department of Land Resources, as reported by Nashi Hroshi, violated the procedure when submitting the application to the commission, as it sent the document exactly one month after the lease expired. Thus, on the basis of this submission, the commission renewed the lease agreement without a further decision of the Kyiv City Council.
In 2020, the Kyiv City Council received an explanatory note signed by Olenych regarding one of the plots in the central district of the capital. According to Nashi Hroshi, this land plot was state-owned and was supposed to be a public garden, but Olenych’s note listed the land as communal. Later, the cadastre showed a new designation of the land for residential development.
In 2018-2021, he served as the Director of the Department of Land Resources of the Kyiv City State Administration, where he was responsible for the management of communal and state-owned land in Kyiv and the privatization of land within the city.
The Department of Land Resources, headed by Olenych, regularly awarded large construction and reconstruction tenders from municipal enterprises to companies associated with Leonid Chernovetsky’s ex-associate Denys Komarnytsky, who was called by the media at the time the main “watchdog” for construction in Kyiv. One of the documents leaked from Komarnitsky’s computer contained a list of heads of departments of the Kyiv City State Administration with the notes “Do not touch”, “Team to work”, ” “, in which, according to EP, there was a “plus” opposite Olenych. Olenych denied any ties to Komarnitsky and said he was accountable only to Klitschko and the people of Kyiv.
In 2021, he was appointed deputy head of the Kyiv City State Administration for the exercise of self-governing powers (responsible for the digitalization of city services and capital management). In this position, together with his team, he launched the Kyiv Digital city application.
In 2023, Olenych was notified of suspicion of abuse of office in relation to the development of a part of Nyvky Park. The NABU and the SAPO claim that in 2019, he, then the director of the KCSA’s Land Resources Department, submitted a land management project to the Kyiv City Council that provided for the development of a part of the park for a residential and office complex, ignoring the fact that the site belonged to a nature reserve fund.
As a result, the private company received a 0.6-hectare part of the park for development. The court subsequently declared the city council’s decision illegal and the lease agreement invalid. As of November 2023, construction in the park has been suspended.
In response to being served with the suspicion, Olenych said that law enforcement officers had been misled and that he had acted legally.
In February 2025, Olenych was suspended from the post of deputy head of the Kyiv City State Administration for 2 months on suspicion of land fraud, and he was released from the pre-trial detention center on bail.
Olenych himself believes that the suspicion of law enforcement officers is unfounded, as he wrote on his Facebook page.
“Regarding the latest developments. I thank my family for contributing funds through a loan secured by real estate. In order to prevent any insinuations, I have filed an application for suspension from office for the period of the preventive measure. I believe the suspicion is unfounded. Together with our lawyers, we have filed an appeal and will defend our integrity in court,” the official wrote.
It is known that Olenych’s wife, Iryna Oleksandrivna Bisyk, held various positions in the Ministry of Justice. In particular, she was an assistant to Justice Minister Oleksandr Lavrynovych, who is suspected of treason. Bisyk also worked in the Office of the Ukrainian Parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights. The husband of Bisyk’s sister is Oleksiy Ogurtsov, a judge of the DACK, which was liquidated by a decision of the Verkhovna Rada due to significant corruption risks.
Yuriy Leonov
Born on January 8, 1984 in Kyiv. In 2017, he graduated from the Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture.
In 2020, he unsuccessfully ran for the Kyiv City Council of the 9th convocation from the Servant of the People party.
At the time of the election, he worked as the head of the land relations department of the Spetszhylofond utility company.
Oleksiy Mushta
According to the declaration filed on March 29, 2024, Oleksiy Mushta lives in Kyiv. He is married. His wife is Yulia Viktorivna Mushta.
Mushta has no real estate, but owns a car
AUDI Q5 made in 2016, worth UAH 342 thousand 364, and AUDI A8 made in 2013, worth UAH 100 thousand.
In addition, Oleksiy Mushta declared $74 thousand in cash.
Mykhailo Terentyev
Born on September 12, 1985 in the city of Nikopol, Dnipro region.
He is a historian and lawyer, received his master’s degree from the Drahomanov National Pedagogical University, and completed his postgraduate studies at the same university in 2009.
In 2004-2006, he worked as an assistant legal counsel at Vinada LLC.
In 2006-2009, he worked as a lecturer at the Drahomanov National Pedagogical University.
In 2010-2014, he was the Head of the Public Reception of the Kyiv City Council.
Since 2014, he has been the Chairman of the Board of the Adults for Children Charitable Foundation.
In 2014 and 2015, he was elected to the Kyiv City Council of the 7th and 8th convocations from UDAR and Solidarnist, respectively, and is a member of the Committee on Budget and Socio-Economic Development.
Terentyev is associated with Alla Shlapak, a former associate of Leonid Chernovetsky. He was the head of her public reception office for a long time, and was her observer in the 2012 parliamentary elections.
In 2016, in the first 100 days of the newly elected Kyiv City Council, the deputy joined the ranks of truants.
in 2018, he was absent during the vote on the draft decision to preserve Poshtova Square, where the remains of streets dating back to the times of Kyivan Rus were found.
In 2018, as the director of the Engineering Center, an executive body of the Kyiv City Council (KCSA), Terentyev received almost 580 thousand UAH in salary for the year. He stated this in his declaration.
In 2019, he unsuccessfully ran for the Verkhovna Rada of the 9th convocation from the European Solidarity party in Kyiv’s Pechersk district (constituency #221). He took 3rd place with less than 17% of the vote.
In terms of the size of the election fund, he was among the top 10 majoritarian candidates, ranking 9th. During the parliamentary campaign, Terentyev spent UAH 2.4 million on TV ads. It was shown on Inter, 112 Ukraine, and NewsOne TV channels.
In 2020, he was elected to the Kyiv City Council of the 8th convocation from the UDAR party in the 8th constituency in the Pechersk district. He headed the Commission on Architecture, Urban Development and Land Relations.
In 2023, Terentyev was suspected of evading military service. According to the investigation, the deputy, who was a member of the terrorist defense forces, did not report for military service for a year, instead arranging a business trip to the Kyiv City Council.
Kyiv exposes organized crime group headed by high-ranking official involved in land deals: what is known
Employees of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine exposed a mechanism for seizing land from the Kyiv community as part of Operation Clean City .
The deal was carried out by a criminal organization headed by a media-famous former deputy of the Kyiv City Council, which included top officials, deputies and others.
Its members used the so-called “toilet scheme,” which involved finding attractive land plots and registering ownership of buildings in the names of controlled persons, which in many cases never existed on these plots. This allowed them to obtain priority ownership of the land under these ghost buildings.
Each participant in the crime performed a clearly assigned role to make the scheme work like clockwork, and an attractive piece of Kyiv land fell under the control of its organizer.
The scheme of seizing community land in the capital: what details are known about it
In 2023, when identifying key priorities within the Kyiv City State Administration, it was decided to focus efforts on exposing the so-called “watchdogs” and schemes in the land sector.
As the NABU later found out, an organized criminal group led by a former member of the Kyiv City Council was engaged in the illegal acquisition of land plots in Kyiv. After the 2019 elections, the head of the organized group gained influence on a number of processes – on deputies and officials of the Kyiv City State Administration.
This allowed him to agree on a list of draft decisions of the Kyiv City Council that were to be submitted for consideration or blocked.
According to the NABU, in 2023-2024, the group illegally seized land plots worth more than UAH 11 million and tried to appropriate 6 more land plots worth more than UAH 83 million. In the best traditions of a criminal organization, its members used special means of communication, pseudonyms and counter-surveillance to conceal their activities.
The head of the criminal organization is currently wanted. Pre-trial restraint in the form of custody with an alternative to bail was chosen for the active members of the organized crime group:
- a member of the land commission of the Kyiv City Council – UAH 50 million
- deputy Head of the Kyiv City State Administration – UAH 15 million;
- head of the Land Commission of the Kyiv City Council – UAH 20 million;
- deputy Director of the municipal enterprise Kyivblagoustrii – UAH 7.5 million;
- first Deputy Director of the municipal enterprise “Spetszhilofond” – UAH 4.5 million.
The NABU added that the published information is only a small part of what was obtained during the development of the criminal organization. The land sector was only one of the areas of interest to their members.
