Anti-corruption authorities have begun an investigation into the lifestyle and financial assets of Ruslan Kandybor, the former director of the Department of Transport Infrastructure of the Kyiv City State Administration (KCSA). The investigation involves a comprehensive monitoring of the origin of property, bank accounts, and cash savings not only of the official himself, but also of his wife Olga Kandybor, daughter Daryna Kandybor, and other related relatives. The investigation was launched in September 2025 after Kandybor was dismissed from his position "by mutual consent."
According to the investigation, the purpose of the monitoring is to determine whether the declared income corresponds to the family's real expenses. Detectives demanded that banks disclose banking secrecy: lists of all accounts and the movement of funds from the moment they were opened until September 22, 2025. Thus, law enforcement officers are trying to trace the origin of the funds, cash transactions, as well as possible transfers between family members.
Ruslan Kandybor has headed the Department of Transport Infrastructure of the Kyiv City State Administration since August 2021. In July 2025, he was charged with suspicion under Part 2 of Article 367 of the Criminal Code (official negligence that caused grave consequences) in connection with an emergency situation in the Kyiv metro in the winter of 2023. According to the investigation, Kandybor and his subordinates ignored the threat of destruction of the tunnel on the "blue" branch of the metro (the section between the "Demiivska" - "Lybidska" stations), which led to a traffic stop, a multi-month restriction on the line's operation, and losses to the capital's budget of more than UAH 164 million. Kandybor himself denies his guilt and calls the claims manipulative, claiming that the causes of the emergency are design errors from the time of construction.
After the suspicion was announced, the court removed Kandybor from his post and sent him under nightly house arrest. The prosecutor's office insisted on 24-hour arrest with an electronic bracelet and stated that it would appeal the more lenient preventive measure. In September 2025, Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko signed an order dismissing Kandybor from the Kyiv City State Administration "by agreement of the parties."
Despite the official income declared by Kandybor, questions arose about his family's standard of living. The official's annual salary was about UAH 1.15 million (an average of about UAH 96,000 per month), but the family, according to available data, owns several apartments and land plots in the Lviv region, holds significant amounts of cash — over USD 70,000 and EUR 25,000 — and has a large fleet of cars.
The list of cars includes several retro cars and two modern Mercedes-Benzes. One of them is a 2018 Mercedes-Benz GLC 300, purchased in 2024, that is, during a full-scale war. It is precisely such assets — movable property registered to family members or related persons — that are currently of interest to anti-corruption authorities, as they may be a sign of so-called "unexplained enrichment" (when a lifestyle does not correspond to official income). This block of verification concerns not only Kandybor himself, but also his wife and daughter, who, according to the investigation, could have acted as nominal owners.
Detectives are requesting full bank statements for all of Kandybor's family members and relatives to track transfers, large cash deposits, real estate and car purchases, and possible currency conversions. Such requests are standard for asset checks on local officials, but in this case, the scope of the request clearly goes beyond just the former official's pay slip - they are actually checking the entire family circle.
The investigation into Kandybor's standard of living has two dimensions at once. The first is public: it concerns an official who is already suspected of official negligence that cost the city hundreds of millions of hryvnias and paralyzed one of the key branches of the Kyiv metro. The second is systemic: it is a test of whether anti-corruption agencies are ready to dig not only for "technical fault" for the accident, but also for possible illegal enrichment that could have accumulated over the years while he worked in the department.
Now investigators are trying to determine whether the Kandybor family's assets, including real estate, cash and expensive cars, are hidden assets formed through abuse of office. If this discrepancy is proven, the next step could be not only a case of negligence, but also separate suspicions of illicit enrichment or false declaration of information.
