The publication explains that rooms and apartments are provided by the state to employees of the courts, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the Main Intelligence Directorate (HUR), police officers, rescuers, utility workers, and other officials in need of housing. Over time, these service apartments are sometimes privatized. There have been cases where an official received service housing, privatized it, sold it, and then queued for another service apartment, as reported by Bihus.info. The publication notes that while the distribution and privatization of service housing are lawful, this opportunity is often exploited by "those officials who do not genuinely need it." Some individuals involved in the investigation concealed their ownership of private housing, according to the article.
Specifically, the investigation discusses former judge of the Sixth Administrative Court of Appeal Lyudmila Hubskaya. According to journalists, in 2019, she received a three-room service apartment in the "Comfort Town" residential complex. Its current value is at least $115,000. By 2023, Hubskaya privatized it and resigned a few months later. Notably, the judge owns real estate; in 2022, Hubskaya became the owner of a two-room apartment and a parking space in a new residential complex in Cherkasy. Her son, Ruslan Hubsky, also purchased a two-room apartment there. The judge's daughter-in-law bought two additional one-room apartments in the "Comfort Town" complex in Kyiv. In total, the judge and her family acquired properties and vehicles worth approximately $400,000 during their use of service housing, the journalists claim.
The apartment in "Comfort Town" was also privatized by former court secretary at the Sixth Administrative Court of Appeal Yulia Voitkovska, writes Bihus.info. At the time she received the service housing, neither she nor her daughter owned property in Kyiv. In 2022, Voitkovska's 18-year-old daughter Anna Kosenko purchased a large new apartment in the "Rusanivska Havan" residential complex, but it was Judge Yevhen Mezenets, for whom Voitkovska worked as an assistant, who began using it.
The publication also mentions Judge Yuriy Pidchenko of the Economic Court of Kyiv, who, according to the investigation, received and almost immediately privatized a three-room apartment in the "Motor" residential complex from the state. Before he started using the service housing, his wife, Inna Pidchenko, had purchased an apartment in Kyiv, but this property disappeared from the judge's declarations just before he received the service apartment, the publication states. Journalists found that the judge's wife transferred her property to her mother. The mother, in turn, acquired another apartment in the "Delmar" complex in Pechersk in 2021. Apartments of similar size currently range from $170,000 to $250,000, depending on the renovations, the publication notes.
Another individual in the investigation is Serhiy Boychuk, head of the department providing support for the Minister of Internal Affairs. According to journalists, in 2023, he privatized a service apartment in the "Crystal Springs" residential complex. In his declarations for previous years, he indicated that since 2014 he owned a two-room apartment in Poznyaky, but before receiving the service housing, this apartment disappeared from his declarations. Boychuk claimed to journalists that the apartment now belongs to his mother, who, along with his father, left the Mykolaiv region at the beginning of the full-scale invasion by the aggressor state, the Russian Federation. However, journalists discovered that the apartment was transferred to the law enforcement officer's mother in 2020 – prior to the full-scale invasion. Boychuk received the service apartment in 2021.
Two additional service apartments in the "Slavutych" residential complex were received by law enforcement officers Dmitry Sokolov and Artem Rodygin, who are close to the head of the National Police Ivan Vygovsky, writes Bihus.info. Sokolov, head of one of the departments of the National Police of Ukraine, began using a three-room apartment in 2022 and privatized it just two years later. During this time, his mother and mother-in-law were actively purchasing real estate near Kyiv, the publication notes.
Rodygin, deputy head of the Main Directorate of the National Police in Kyiv, received a four-room apartment in the same residential complex, the publication writes. As of now, it has not yet been privatized; however, it has already been removed from the list of service apartments, which is one of the primary steps toward privatization.