Personnel changes continue in Vitaliy Klitschko’s team, including in the strategic municipal enterprise Kyivpastrans. After the escape of former director Dmytro Levchenko and a series of high-profile corruption suspicions, the new appointments raise many questions. One of the least public, but influential newcomers is Serhiy Bily — deputy general director of the enterprise and head of the Vydubychi bus station. Journalists of the project “In the Shadow of the Chestnut” investigated his past, fortune, and surroundings — and found more than just a technocrat in the transport sector.
Serhiy Bily is originally from the Dnipropetrovsk region, is married, and has two children. His son Ivan has been living in the United States, in Colorado, for several years, and studied at Malibu High School, an institution that is only open to citizens or residents. Bily Jr. played hockey in both Ukraine and America, and on social media he posts defiant slogans like “The Tsar Owes No One.”
His wife, Olena, lives in Ukraine and is active on Instagram, where she posts photos from Odessa, Kyiv, and the family's European travels. Over the past two years, the family has visited Switzerland, Italy, Sweden, Poland, and London.
Despite his position in the utilities sector, Serhiy Bily does not declare any expensive property. Instead, everything is registered in his wife's name:
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apartment in Dnipro (70 m²)
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apartment in Kyiv (85 m²), purchased in 2013 for over 500 thousand UAH, which at that time was equal to only 75 thousand dollars
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three cars: Hyundai Sonata (2015) , Toyota Avensis (2012) and Infiniti Q50 (2018)
According to the declaration, the wife earned only 77 thousand UAH per year (approximately 6.5 thousand UAH per month), but it was she who purchased a car worth over a million UAH during the full-scale war.
Olena Bila officially works for Realtrade LLC, which is part of the S.Group of former MP Serhiy Rybalka. This group is involved in the case of tax evasion of UAH 145 million and attempts to seize ATB-Market funds. Bila himself and Rybalka are fellow countrymen and former political associates from Oleh Lyashko's Radical Party.
After being appointed to Kyivpastrans, Bily submitted two declarations with a difference of 8 days - and it was these documents that attracted the attention of the NACP.
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The first one indicated $140,000 in cash from his wife and a 200,000 UAH loan to a third person, Oleksandr Lukyanenko.
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In the second, there is already a $145,000 loan in the name of Serhiy himself, without mentioning his wife.
Lukyanenko, as it turned out, also works at Kyivpastrans as the head of the rolling stock maintenance department. This financial mini-drama with loans and cash leaves questions about the real origin of the funds.
Serhiy Bily is a man who manages one of the key transport hubs of the capital and has influence on the company's cash flows. But instead of loud reforms, there is silence, instead of transparency, there are confusing declarations. Whether he will become a symbol of the renewal of Kyivpastrans or a new hero of the corruption scandal is a matter of time.
