While the head of ARMA, Olena Duma, talks about zero corruption, elite hotels, sanatoriums, and other seized real estate continue to bring in profits... but not to the state. Only 20% of the transferred property has actually been transferred to management, the rest is millions beyond the budget.
Judging by the official audit of the Accounting Chamber, since the beginning of 2022, ARMA has received 684 court orders for the transfer of property, but has only implemented 135. The rest is forgotten in the archives or left in the "temporary" management of the previous owners. Losses are over 850 million hryvnias. Some of the objects are under the noses of high-ranking officials: these are the hotels "Tourist", "Druzhba", "Tsentralny", sanatoriums in Koncha-Zaspa, the Carpathians and Transcarpathia.
The worst thing is that some of these facilities may be generating profits for businessmen associated with the aggressor country. One example is the hotels in Odessa that are linked to Lina Akivison, the daughter of a Russian businessman from St. Petersburg. Despite the arrest, no state manager has been appointed. In contrast, the Central Hotel in the center of Odessa continues to operate and declared almost 2 million hryvnias in revenue in 2024.
The situation is similar in Kropyvnytskyi, Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Transcarpathia. Even in the case of the Zhovten sanatorium in Koncha-Zaspa, the cost of which was understated by 16 times — from 944 to 60 million UAH — for some reason there were no willing managers. But business there, apparently, did not stop.
Public promises by ARMA head Olena Duma about transparency in the management of seized property are shattered by statistics: in the first quarter of 2025, these objects brought the state only 3% of expected revenues.
Why doesn't the state want to make money on already seized property? Because generally "toxic" property — like the Trade Union House or Gulliver — is brought out of the shadows, and everything else, less media-worthy, is simply turned a blind eye. The winners are the same. The losers are the budget.
