Recently, an event was held in the center of Kyiv, which attracted the attention of the public and journalists. At this event, Vitaly Gersak, a former employee of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), made a special speech. Dressed in camouflage and a rapper's bandana on his head, he addressed American senators and asked them for money for Ukrainian veterans.
In 2020, after journalistic investigations, the president dismissed Vitaly Gersak from the position of head of the SBU department in the Mykolaiv region. Three and a half years have passed, and the same Gersak is organizing an event in the center of Kyiv where he asks American senators for money for Ukrainian veterans. He himself is dressed in camouflage. We have obtained unique testimony about Gersak's service in the SBU and found ambiguous information about schemes, elite properties and luxurious life during the great war.
Vitaly Gersak, ex-chief of the SBU in the Mykolaiv region, repeatedly became the hero of journalistic investigations.
After his appointment to the Mykolayiv region in 2019, his family began to acquire elite property. Gersak himself flashed a $60,000 Toyota Tundra with his initials and Russian helicopters on the bumper. A series of scandals ended with a loud dismissal in 2020. Three years have passed and yesterday's figure in anti-corruption investigations has returned to the public. Already as a public figure. Vitaly Gersak was born in the city of Nemyriv in the Vinnytsia region. Studied in Ivano-Frankivsk. Since 2003, he worked in Vinnytsia and for another five years - in the district center of Haysyn in criminal investigation in the police. In 2010, the young operative's career took off - he became the head of criminal investigation of the Line Department at the "Kyiv-Pasajyrskyi" station. After his dismissal from the police, he joined the Department of Internal Security of the Foreign Intelligence Service. And so, in September 2019, Zelenskyy appointed Gersak to the position of head of the SBU in the Mykolaiv region by decree.
Ivan Bakanov, head of the SBU, came to Mykolaiv to represent Gersak, and he was accompanied by Andriy Yermak himself, then just Zelenskyi's assistant. Gersak first took up the so-called illegal gas stations, which were part of his sphere of interests. For several years, Gersak's wife Yulia was considered a co-founder of TEKU, which was involved in the case of the production and sale of illegal fuel in the Kyiv region.
Schemes, ladders, SBU
A former colleague of Gersak anonymously told in detail what the official really did during his service in the Mykolaiv region:
"There was an appeal from agrarians from the Mykolaiv region that he, together with the Chechens, is suppressing their business. He said that he did not know these Chechens, but we documented him at "Novopecherskyi Lypki", as he held regular meetings with them there. This formed the basis of the materials of the official inspection, according to which he was then stripped of his rank, demoted from colonel to lieutenant colonel, and, accordingly, these materials became the basis of his dismissal. When he was released, threats came from all sides. I know that Bakanov was threatened by Yermak and Arakhamiya."
In 2021, an official investigation was conducted regarding Vitaly Gersak, during which four more interesting episodes were documented:
after being appointed to the position of head of the State Security Service of Ukraine in the Mykolaiv region, Vitaly Gersak began to control the financial flows from the poaching of shrimp on the territory of the Kinburn spit, the total amount of which can be about 4 million hryvnias.
there was smuggling of diesel fuel from sea vessels that were on a raid near sea ports;
diesel fuel was stolen from the railway;
in the Odesa region, under the leadership of Gersak, several large "farms" for the production of bitcoins were equipped, the organization of which was supervised by an information technology specialist from Mykolaiv.
Everything to the wife, nothing to myself
After the appointment to the position of the head of the Mykolaiv SBU, Gersak's family began to have a lot of property, and everything was registered to his wife Yulia. Until the beginning of 2020, she owned two apartments in the elite residential complex "French Quarter", two garages there and a new Toyota Camry in the top configuration.
After the dismissal of her husband, in the summer of 2021, Yulia Gersak bought two more apartments of almost 200 square meters, six parking spaces and a non-residential premises in the capital residential complex "Novopecherski Lypky". At that time, the value of all this real estate was supposed to be approximately one and a half million dollars.
There is no legal source of income that could explain the origin of such a real estate empire. Gersak's career included only 20 years of service in the police and SBU at the time. There are no mentions of a successful legal business or commercial success of Vitaly Gersak after his dismissal from the SBU. Only a few registered companies, most of which are located in Odesa. However, the amount of elite property and land in the Gersak family only grew.
Rap, cars and property for the son
Now, when Gersak himself in military uniform speaks publicly about his charity, his son began to take care of family affairs instead of his wife. According to his father, in the first days of the great war, when Kirill turned 18, they joined the defense of Ukraine together. There is no evidence of Kirill's military service. But in social networks, he shows all the signs of a rich life: he drives expensive cars, has dinner in a restaurant and records raps about the same cars, money and brands.
All the property that Kyrylo Gersak brags about in social networks is confirmed by official documents. According to the real estate registry, in the fall of 2023, the boy became the owner of a 107 m² apartment in the Aqua Marine residential complex in Odesa under a donation agreement. Even without repairs, it would cost $90,000. In his early 20s, Gersak Jr. also received many assets in the Vinnytsia region: in less than a year, he was given half of a 2.5-hectare plot of land, which he leases to an agricultural enterprise, two plots of 5 and 10 hectares for the construction of a house, 15 acres for farming and another 1.2 hectares of land. He also had two residential buildings in different parts of the Vinnytsia region.
Also, in 2023, he became the owner of four cars. One of the cars is a BMW 530E (2017), which at that time cost at least $30,000. At the same time, I bought a brand new Mercedes-Benz V300D (2023 year), which costs about 100 thousand dollars. The old parent's Toyota Tundra and Volkswagen Transporter were also rewritten on it.
As an edge of elite real estate, it was precisely in 2023 that companies that previously belonged to Gersak Sr. and his mother began to be transferred to him (according to YouControl, these companies did not bring income).
Restaurant "Solo"
On his Instagram page, Kyrylo Gersak posted a link to the restaurant "Solo" in Odessa.
Her new song has the same name. From this institution, the boy repeatedly posted videos on social networks. Kyrylo also registered as a sole trader in the direction of "restaurant activity". According to our data, Gersak Sr. also set up a study there. This is a fairly well-known institution in Odessa, which often changes owners.
"Solo" is a "transitional flag": whoever cooperates more with the police today calls himself the master of "Solo". They sit without hiding. They are not sitting on the second floor, they are on the first floor, there are [their] cars right under Solo, and they are calmly "solving issues there." They talk, they drink. This is very important," says Iryna Hryb, a blogger from Odesa who has been researching the activities of law enforcement agencies in southern Ukraine for many years.
"Free and Faithful"
In August 2023, Vitaly Gersak founded a public organization - "Free and Faithful" with offices in Vinnytsia, Odesa and Mykolaiv, where he appointed interesting people as managers. In particular, in Vinnytsia, this is the "ex-regional" deputy Viktor Pigulya, who until 2020 was constantly running for the local council from the "Opposition Bloc", and also, according to the court case, did not give his partner $10,000.
In Odesa, it is also a local ex-deputy from "Servant of the People" Oleg Kaptur with an ambiguous reputation. And in Mykolaiv - Rustamzhan Sadridinov, a member of the "Party of Regions" during the time of the fugitive former president Viktor Yanukovych. In the local elections of 2020, he ran for the pro-Russian party "Nash Kray", created by the former "regionals". Already after the start of the war, Rustamjan repeatedly became the subject of journalistic investigations due to the supply of products for the army at inflated prices.
The place of registration of the head office is an unremarkable building near Khreschatyk, the capital. More than 90 enterprises are registered there. At this address, no one has heard of the public organization. The director of a real law firm from this office said that this is a mail-only address.
The NGO "Free and Faithful", registered in Kyiv, started its activities not from the capital, but from Odesa. Iryna Hryb says that in the spring of 2023 Gersak began to position himself there as the legal successor of the criminal authority Khalid Musayev, who, according to the National Police, cooperated with the Russian occupiers, went abroad, was wanted since February 2023 and was detained on December 12 in the Arab Emirates . He is suspected of contract killings, kidnapping, extortion, drug dealing and arms smuggling. For a long time, according to the blogger, Gersak even lived in Khalid's house.
It was the NGO "Free and Faithful" that became the organizer of the large-scale event in the center of Kyiv, which we mentioned at the beginning - with a buffet, distinguished guests and Gersak himself at the head. The co-organizer of the Gersak conference was, in particular, the PolitA Institute of Democracy and Development. The organization is known for its cooperation with the American lobbying company Zeppelin Communications in favor of ex-prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova. So, Vitaly Gersak is really trying to enlist the support of those people who in one way or another have real connections with representatives of various American political circles.
"Today, thanks to our co-organizers, we are holding an international conference that will define veteran policy in our country in the future, and with the help of our American partners, we will simply implement it. Today, we do not have funding, but we plan to attract investors, especially American ones, so that American NGOs and foundations will join this work and help us with funding, technical and expert areas," Vitaly Gersak shared his thoughts at the conference with the Americans.
Gersak himself never told us in which unit he served and participated in hostilities. However, several different resources mentioned the 122nd TRO brigade from the Odesa region. We asked them how an active serviceman could be so far from the unit and whether they knew about his ambitious plans for cooperation with the Americans. We did not receive a specific answer from the unit. He said that such information could threaten the personal safety of military personnel. However, it was reported there that the leadership of the unit did not authorize anyone to search for sources of funding.
