In Kharkiv and Odessa, parallel investigations are underway to theft of budget funds with the participation of city officials, affiliate enterprises and representatives of the controlling bodies. According to the investigation, both schemes were functioning with the support of city mayors, which created favorable conditions for the development of state resources under the cover of socially sensitive projects.
In Kharkiv it was found that former director of Kharkivzelenbud utility Alexander Sukhovyi acted in connection with the mayor Igor Terekhov and Director of the Department of Housing and Communal Services Oleg Topchiy. Through the tenders who won the controlled companies, fictitious contracts and manipulations with the declaration of income, the mechanism of systematic theft of budget funds was implemented. In 2022–2023, the drying hid at least UAH 8.88 million, including cash savings, salaries, wife's income and property. A separate area of the scheme was the evasion of employees of enterprises from mobilization, which took place with the assistance of influential defendants in the territorial centers of completion.
The Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor's Office provided information to the ERDR at 420252220000000157 of June 20, 2025 under part two of Article 366-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
At the same time, investigators study the activities of an organized criminal group, which includes Mayor Gennady Trukhanov, his deputy Pavel Coelman, as well as officials of the Department of Labor and Social Policy. Conspiracy with a number of controlled legal entities, including the company of "taste factory", the mechanism of appropriation of funds intended for the purchase of grocery kits for internally displaced persons and other vulnerable categories of the population was implemented. The scheme was based on the overestimation of goods, forgery, work through fictitious enterprises and the use of conversion centers for cash output.
It was established that the covers of the scheme involved officials of the STS, the State Audit Office and other institutions, which, abusing their official position, ensured the unimpeded functioning of the mechanism.
Criminal proceedings on tax evasion in particularly large amounts were made to the ERDR at 72025161020000010 of April 16, 2025 under part 3 of Article 212 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
Against the background of these facts, there is a logical question about the systematic corruption at the level of local self -government, where tools of social support and communal development are used for personal enrichment of officials. Both proceedings testify to the fusion of business, politics and crime in the largest cities of the country - at a time when the state needs maximum transparency and responsibility.
