Shmyhal’s government: what was revealed in the ministers’ declarations
18 March 2024 15:41
New houses, land, cars, cryptocurrency and rental apartments abroad. All this was declared by Ukrainian ministers in 2022 and 2023. Komersant ukrayinsky 
continues to investigate the declarations of officials, and ministers are next in line. Read the article to find out what exactly and for how much the government officials and their relatives bought during the Great War.
What the Prime Minister has
In 2022, the Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal did not purchase any new land or apartments, and the only new purchase was a garage in Lviv for UAH 150,000, which was bought by his wife. She is also the only one who, according to the declaration, owns a car – a 2016 Land Rover for UAH 800,000.
The Prime Minister’s income includes only a salary of UAH 900,000. Instead, his wife earned more than UAH 7 million from her business in 2022.
Denys Shmyhal kept $140,000 in cash, and his wife kept UAH 68,000 and $85,000, which is much more than in 2021, when Kateryna Shmyhal had only 35,000 in cash.
Land
During the first year of the full-scale invasion, some ministers became owners of new land plots in Ukraine. For example, in August 2022, Yulia Svyrydenko, First Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Economy, purchased a land plot of almost 1,500 square metres in the village of Klochkiv, Chernihiv region.
A day before the full-scale invasion began, Svyrydenko received the right to use a BMWX3 from her husband Serhiy Derlemenko, whose name is not listed in the family members section of the official’s declaration.
Yulia Svyrydenko is not the only minister who has acquired new land during the full-scale invasion.
The family of Oleksandr Kubrakov, Deputy Prime Minister for the Restoration of Ukraine and Minister for Communities, Territories and Infrastructure, has also increased its “possessions“. In February 2023, the minister’s relative Lyudmyla Kubrakov bought a 1,000 sq m plot of land in Kyiv.
On the same day, she also became the owner of a 263 sq m apartment building in the capital. The entire family of the Minister has the right to use both the land and the house. Also in 2023, Oleksandr Kubrakov forgave a debt of more than UAH 4 million to his relative, whose name was not specified in the declaration.
Bonds, gilts and crypto
Bank accounts and cash are not the top places to keep money in 2023, at least for the Minister of Strategic Industries of Ukraine Oleksandr Kamyshyn. According to his declaration, Kamyshin has both cash and large bank accounts. This is not surprising, as the minister is a businessman who worked as a manager at Dragon Capital and SCM, and was the founder of Latifundist Media, Grano Group, AgTech Farm, and Fortior Capital.
However, 2023 was the year of bonds and cryptocurrencies for Kamyshin. In 2022-2023, the minister purchased more than UAH 3 million worth of military bonds (based on the nominal value of one security – ed.), UAH 16 million worth of Eurobonds, and UAH 24 million worth of Ukrainian government bonds.
In 2023, Oleksandr Kamyshin also bought Tether, Bitcoin and Ripple cryptocurrencies.
As for income, in addition to salaries at Ukrzaliznytsia of over UAH 3 million and at the Ministry of Strategic Development of Ukraine of UAH 890 thousand, Oleksandr Kamyshin declared UAH 17.455 million in income from the sale of Bitcoin and UAH 19.3 million in income from government securities.
A trademark for 5 million
Another minister of Ukraine, Mykhailo Fedorov, did not declare any new cars, apartments or crypto during the Great War. However, in 2021, he declared the SMMSTUDIO trademark, which is valued at UAH 5 million.
SMMSTUDIO is a company that provides services in targeted advertising, SMM promotion, website development and design. Fedorov was the owner of this company until 2019. In 2023, according to Opendatabot, this company received UAH 300 in net profit.
In general, Fedorov’s declaration does not show any luxurious purchases, and, according to published data, the minister’s salary is lower than that of his wife, Anastasiia Fedorova. In 2023, she earned over UAH 2 million from her business activities.
According to the declaration, the current minister owned a 74-square-metre apartment, rented a small non-residential premises, used two car spaces in Kyiv, and his wife owned a land plot in Zaporizhzhia region.
He also owned a 2019 Audi Q8, and his wife owned a 2016 Audi A4.
Rentals in Germany, the USA and Slovakia
Minister of Justice Denys Maliuska, according to his declaration, has only a small 34 m² apartment in Kyiv, a 2008 Mazda, UAH 5,000 in cash and UAH 6,000 in his bank account. This is despite his million-dollar salary at the ministry. In contrast, his wife, Liudmyla Rabchynska, who was dismissed from her post as Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation in April 2022, has €48,000 in a bank account in Munich.
She also earns more than her husband – in the first year of the Great War, she received almost UAH 2 million in salary from the German IT company CGI Deutschland and 350 thousand in fees. She was also paid 442 thousand hryvnias for her work at the Ministry of Digital Transformation.
Liudmyla Rabchynska rents a one hundred square metre apartment in Germany, where she lives with her four children.
Rustem Umerov, the wife of the Minister of Defence of Ukraine, also rents an apartment abroad with her children. Umerov himself has the right to use the apartment. In total, the minister declared UAH 16 million in income in his declaration, of which more than UAH 1 million was received by his wife from a company in the United States.
The minister himself has been renting a 128-metre apartment in Kyiv since 2023.
The wife of the acting Minister of Youth and Sports, Matviy Bidnyi, has been renting a 109 sq m apartment in Slovakia since May 2022.
His wife also owns an apartment in Kyiv and a house and land plot in the occupied Crimea, according to her 2023 declaration.
Living in a hotel
In 2022, the family of Finance Minister Sergii Marchenko owned two apartments in Kyiv, but since June of that year, they have all been entitled to use a hotel room in Kyiv.
This is despite the declared salary of UAH 1 million. In 2022, Marchenko’s wife received UAH 747.5 thousand of income from business activities, UAH 590 thousand of salary from the ISIDA-IVF medical centre and UAH 272 thousand of a gift.
“Zaporizhzhia and DEO
As it turned out, the current ministers of Ukraine use not only foreign cars. The Minister of the Cabinet of Ministers, Oleh Nemchinov, has a 1979 ZAZ in his car fleet. However, in addition to the ZAZ, the minister also owns a 2016 SUBARU FORESTER and a 2017 CHEVROLET BOLT EV.
However, Oksen Lisovyi, who became Minister of Education and Science in March 2023, declared only one car in 2022 – a 2003 ZAZ-DAEWoo. In total, the Lisovykh family owns land, houses and an apartment, but almost all of their property was purchased in the 2000s.
Vehicle fleet, outstanding loans and studying in Switzerland
According to his declaration for 2023, the family of the Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Mykola Solskyi had a car and more than one.
Solskyi personally owns a Range Rover worth more than UAH 2 million, and he also had the right to use his wife’s cars, while she had a Range Rover DISCOVERY worth almost UAH 2 million, a Range Rover worth 700 thousand, and a SUZUKI GRAND VITARA, to which the minister has no rights. The wife also owns 3 land plots in Kyiv region and an apartment in joint ownership in the capital.
The minister personally owned an apartment of more than 150 metres in Kyiv, which his wife and children had the right to use, and a non-residential building.
In addition, in 2023, two of the minister’s children had the right to live in rooms in Switzerland for study purposes. Last year, the Minister’s salary was almost one million UAH, and dividends amounted to a much larger sum of more than 18 million UAH. Despite this and large amounts of cash assets, the minister had a loan of almost a million hryvnias back in 2012.
Without his own home
According to their declarations, not all ministers even have their own housing, such as Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources Ruslan Strilets and Minister of Health Viktor Liashko.
In 2022, Strelets declared more than UAH 1 million in salary from the Ministry of Environmental Protection, a 2017 NISSAN MAXIMA, EUR 626 and UAH 274 thousand in bank accounts, and UAH 450 thousand in cash. However, the minister’s wife received a higher salary than him – more than UAH 3 million from entrepreneurial activities. She also has her own apartment in Dnipro.
Minister of Health Viktor Liashko did not have his own home either. In 2023, he lived in an apartment in Brovary that belonged to his wife.
The family has one declared car – a Skoda Octavia A7. However, Lyashko owns a land plot in a village in Kyiv region, and his wife owns land in another village.
The Minister also declared over UAH 1 million in salary for his work at the Ministry of Health.
Living with unfinished buildings and a private garage
According to her declaration, the Minister of Veterans Affairs Yulia Laputina solely owns a garage in Kyiv, but it’s not that simple. Together with other members of Laputina’s family, she owns an apartment in the capital and has the right to use a land plot in Kozyn.
The minister’s husband, Serhii Vorotniuk, owns two unfinished apartments and two parking spaces. In 2023, her relative, Oleksandra Laputina, owned an unfinished house of 300 square metres in Kozyn. Both the minister and her husband have the right to use the house, but with one note, as indicated in the declaration – “Owned by a third party, but there are signs in accordance with part 3 of Article 46 of the Law of Ukraine “On Prevention of Corruption”.
