During the war, when tens of thousands of Mariupol residents lost their homes, Mayor Vadym Boychenko managed to turn state and international aid programs into a source of personal enrichment, according to a large-scale journalistic investigation that exposed schemes to embezzle hundreds of millions of hryvnias intended for displaced people.
After the start of the full-scale Russian invasion, Boychenko left Mariupol, while the residents remained under fire. By the third day of the war, he was safe, and his family was in Kyiv. It was during this period that the mayor's family began actively buying up luxury real estate in Lviv, Khmelnytskyi, and the capital, replenishing their fleet with premium cars.
Boychenko's career is closely linked to Rinat Akhmetov's business empire. It was at the Metinvest enterprises that he began his career, and after he was elected mayor, his wife received a position in Akhmetov's company with an annual income of over 12 million hryvnias. For experts, this looks like a "reward" for loyalty and control over a strategically important city.
After the occupation of Mariupol, the executive committee continued to operate in Zaporizhia, managing a budget that was almost entirely financed by state subsidies. In 2024, this would amount to about 3 billion hryvnias — Ukrainian taxpayers’ money. Some of it was directed to supporting displaced people through the “YaMariupol” program, but the results were shockingly meager.
Of the more than 450 million hryvnias spent on the YaMariupol.Zhytlo project, only 284 rooms were occupied — less than 1% of the displaced. The cost of one room reached 1.6 million hryvnias, while the price of an apartment in the region is half that. The audit recorded violations in tenders, overpricing, and fictitious purchases “under their own control.”
At the same time, the executive committee spent tens of millions on image and fictitious projects: concerts, repairs to “roads” in a city that was actually destroyed, and even the purchase of expensive cars. Toyota Land Cruisers from the budget ended up in the use of Boychenko himself and his son.
No less dubious is the charitable foundation “I am Mariupol,” which receives hundreds of millions of hryvnias of budget and international money but does not provide transparent reporting. IDPs complain about bureaucracy, poor quality of assistance, and a lack of real support.
Meanwhile, the mayor's family continues to buy luxury housing worth over $900,000, and Boychenko himself regularly appears at foreign forums, presenting himself as a "symbol of invincible Mariupol."
When funds intended for war victims become a source of personal profit, it is not just corruption. It is a betrayal of public trust. Such “humanitarian mayors” create a dangerous model where charity turns into a business and a city’s tragedy into a profitable asset.
