The head of the State Environmental Inspectorate in Donetsk region, Oleksandr Yevtukhov, has found himself at the center of two high-profile criminal cases. The Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAP) is demanding the confiscation of his assets worth over UAH 8 million as unfounded, and the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) has submitted to the court an indictment for the embezzlement of at least UAH 1.6 million from the inspectorate's salary fund. The anti-corruption authorities are investigating these episodes in parallel. This is atypical and indicative: this is not a single episode of abuse, but a model of managing a state body, where the budget and the head's private property have de facto merged.
Misappropriation of UAH 1.6 million: how the “remote worker” scheme worked
According to investigators, the leadership of the State Environmental Inspectorate in the Donetsk region, after the start of the full-scale Russian invasion, used the remote work format as a cover. The inspectorate continued to pay the salary of an employee who had left for Russia and was not actually performing his duties.
The head of the inspection, Oleksandr Yevtukhov, the chief accountant and the head of one of the departments systematically entered frankly false data into the time sheets, orders on bonuses and allowances, and settlement and payment information, which were supposed to create the illusion of this “remote” employee working. Part of the paid budget money was returned to the management in the form of “kickbacks”, claims the SBI. According to the bureau, at least UAH 1.6 million of budget funds were wasted in this way.
The State Bureau of Investigation has completed the pre-trial investigation and submitted the indictment to the court. The case involves qualifications under a number of articles of the Criminal Code, in particular under Part 5 of Article 191 (embezzlement of property in especially large amounts through abuse of official position), committed by an organized group and under martial law, as well as under Article 366 (official forgery). These articles provide for up to 12 years of imprisonment with confiscation of property. The trial is scheduled for early December 2025 in the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv.
A separate dimension of this story is the silence in the registry. Despite official statements by law enforcement officers, there are still no detailed rulings in the open materials of the court registry that would allow us to see the names of the co-defendants, the content of the suspicions, and the exact dates of payments. In other words, society is still hearing about the “salary to a person who left for the Russian Federation” scheme, but it does not see its documentary architecture.
8 million “out of thin air”: SAPO demands to seize property
In parallel with the criminal case on the embezzlement of the State Bureau of Investigation, SAPO is pursuing a different line — illicit enrichment. In early September, SAPO prosecutors, together with the State Bureau of Investigation, filed a lawsuit against Oleksandr Yevtukhov with the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC). The demand is simple: to recognize some of his assets as unfounded and confiscate them as state revenue. The amount, which anti-corruption authorities call “property outside income,” is UAH 8.046 million.
At the center of this line is the family. Formally, most of the most valuable assets are not registered with the head of the environmental inspection himself, but with his wife Inna Yevtukhova or close relatives. According to the SAP, luxury cars may be subject to confiscation, in particular, Audi A8, Audi Q8 (2021 model), BMW X5 (2022 model), two Volkswagen Tiguan (2019 and 2024 models), Toyota Land Cruiser Prado 150, Toyota Avensis (2013 model) and Ford Mondeo (2020 model). All these cars were purchased in 2019–2024, that is, during the period when Yevtukhov worked in the state environmental control system — first in the Kherson region, later in Donetsk, and since 2021 he has been heading the Donetsk region inspection.
The SAPO draws attention to two characteristic features: first, some of the cars were registered to a person without a driver's license; second, the transactions were made at clearly understated prices that do not correspond to the market value. Investigators believe that this was done in order to hide the real price of the purchases and legalize the origin of funds that are not confirmed by the family's official income.
Separately, prosecutors point to the role of the wife. Inna Yevtukhova officially registered as an individual entrepreneur only in the fall of 2023 - with the scope of activity "providing services to hairdressers and beauty salons". Before that, there were no significant declared incomes. Despite this, it was she who was registered, in particular, with the new Volkswagen Tiguan (2024 model) and Ford Mondeo (2020 model), as well as the elite BMW X5 of 2022, the cost of which, according to the declaration, reached about UAH 3.4 million. To explain the purchase of such cars with income from salon service is, to put it mildly, difficult. This imbalance became the key argument of the SAPO in the lawsuit to the VAKS.
In the case of unfounded assets, the defendants are not only Oleksandr Yevtukhov himself, but also his wife. The court has already closed the preparatory proceedings and scheduled a hearing on the merits in open mode for November. This means that for the first time the question of how the family of an official of the regional environmental inspectorate level amassed a fleet of cars worth millions will be heard publicly.
What the declarations say
Yevtukhov's public declarations in recent years only reinforce the doubts of anti-corruption agencies. According to the submitted documents, the family consistently increased valuable assets - apartments, parking spaces, cars - much faster than their official income grew. The declarations include "gifts" of hundreds of thousands and even millions of hryvnias from loved ones, multiple resales of movable property, and deals between relatives at surprisingly low prices. Such behavior is a classic marker of an attempt to legalize wealth that an official cannot explain with a salary. The NACP marked these same signs as risky during the inspection and passed the information on to SAPO prosecutors.
Why this story is important not only for the Donetsk region
The State Environmental Inspectorate is a body that has an almost uncontrolled influence on business and resources in the regions. Inspectors can stop enterprises, record environmental damage, block construction or, conversely, “give the green light”. In the front-line Donetsk region, this control is even more sensitive: it concerns industrial risks, the use of natural resources, and the documentation of damage from hostilities.
When the person who heads such an instrument of pressure is simultaneously suspected of a scheme with a fictitious salary and demonstrates a lifestyle that does not match the official income, this ceases to be a purely “someone else’s corruption case.” This is already a story about whether the state can trust environmental control to those whom it itself suspects of embezzlement of the budget.
Today we have two parallel vectors. The first is the SBI criminal case on the embezzlement of UAH 1.6 million from the payroll fund, where Yevtukhov and the inspection's accounting department will stand trial for organizing a "dead soul" scheme that formally operated from outside Ukraine, from the territory of the Russian Federation. The second is the SAPO's lawsuit to the High Anti-Corruption Court for the confiscation of assets worth over UAH 8 million, which, according to the investigation, were acquired without confirmed income and registered in the name of his wife and relatives.
These two episodes come together into one picture: the person who headed the Donetsk Oblast Environmental Inspectorate for years actually controlled not only business inspections, but also cash flows within the inspectorate itself — from salaries to family material assets. And now it's not just about the criminal liability of a specific official, but about a public test for the entire anti-corruption infrastructure of the state.
