Mykola Povoroznyk - First Deputy Head of the Kyiv City State Administration began his career at the Kyiv City Hall in October 2015 as the chief specialist of the department for entrepreneurship. Later, he became the deputy head of the licensing department, and later headed this department.
His work was related to the issuance of licenses, which allowed him to receive additional remuneration for "accelerating the process". For example, for a license worth 255 hryvnias, he could take up to 5,000 dollars. Povoroznyk also had connections with UBOP, which helped him to keep his position, despite possible corrupt practices.
Mykola Povoroznyk, not formally engaged in business, registered family companies for his wife. Povoroznyk himself is a co-founder of the "Nobody but Us" Charitable Foundation, which is engaged in volunteer and charitable assistance, which may also be related to his financial interests.
Another co-founder of the Nobody But Us Foundation is Viktor Oleksandrovich Bilich, a well-known figure in Kyiv. Together with Mykhailo Golytsia, Mykola Negrych and Vyacheslav Nepop, he is often called a member of the so-called "construction clan" in the leadership of the Kyiv City State Administration (KMDA). This clan, which was formed around the construction business, came to power in Kyiv during the time of the mayor-builder Oleksandr Omelchenko and to this day controls the largest construction companies in Kyiv, such as "Zhytloinvestbud-UKB", "Kyivmiskbud", "Fundament" and others.
Viktor Bilych was born on March 13, 1964 in the village of Sviatets, Teofipol district, Khmelnytskyi region, that is, he is a fellow villager of Mykola Povoroznyk. Viktor Bilych's wife, Nataliya Mykolaivna, worked as the head of the KMDA Personnel Department thanks to her husband and his compatriot Povoroznyk, and is also the founder of City-Prime LLC.
Viktor Bilych previously worked at the Kyiv Antonov plant and had an aviation engineer education. After that, in 1994, he became the deputy head of the Kyiv State Property Fund, and from 2000 to 2006 he headed the Main Department for Entrepreneurship of the KMDA. It was Viktor Bilich who in 2001 invited Mykola Povoroznyk to his office, promoting his career. Note that if the information about Povoroznyk's "earnings" from issuing licenses is true, then part of this money probably went to Bilych as well.
Under Leonid Chernovetskyi, Bilych went to work at Zhytloinvestbud, while Povoroznyk remained at KMDA. In December of the same year, Povoroznyk became the head of the Main Directorate for Regulatory Policy and Entrepreneurship, expanding the "trade" of permits and licenses. In 2012, he became the deputy head of the Main Department of Industrial, Scientific, Technical and Innovation Policy of the KMDA and continued to head the department for issuing permits. In 2013, Povoroznyk became the deputy head of the Department of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development of the KMDA, and a few months later - the director of the Department of Economy and Investments of the KMDA.
In January 2016, Povoroznyk was appointed deputy head of the KMDA with the coordination of the department of economy and investments, budget and finance, tax policy and banking, as well as tender procurement. This appointment was made by Vitaliy Klitschko. It is surprising that Povoroznyk is always entrusted with positions where money goes into his hands, and although corruption flourishes, he himself looks like an honest employee who lives on a salary.
Povoroznyk remained in the shadows for a long time, and only in 2016 he became involved in a small scandal. Journalists drew attention to his expensive Hublot Big Bang watch, the price of which ranges from $6,700 to $8,400. This purchase looked especially suspicious against the background of his declarations, where he noted that his annual income for 2015 was only 222,000 hryvnias, which corresponds to the cost of the watch. In addition, his wife Valentina Povoroznyk earned 36 thousand hryvnias in 2015, and only 27 thousand hryvnias in 2016, despite the fact that she is a co-owner of two companies.
Povoroznyk also repeatedly received material assistance from the city budget, including twice in 2017. This has probably become a common practice for him, because in 2016 he already applied for such help, claiming that it was necessary to solve social and household issues.
Since December 2017, Mykola Povoroznyk became the first deputy mayor of the capital, effectively managing Kyiv in Klitschko's absence. Appointments of deputy heads of the KMDA are coordinated with the Cabinet of Ministers. Since 2015, Mykola Povoroznyk has been regularly visiting the Cabinet of Ministers with almost "private visits", which may indicate the presence of his "patrons" there.
Who else is Mykola Povoroznyk related The co-founder of the fund is Gennady Volyanek, whose wife Tetyana Valentinivna Volyanek is the chief economist of the Department of Banking Supervision of the NBU. Another co-founder of the fund, Serhii Kogut, owns LLC "Spice AS" , which is engaged in the wholesale trade of medicines in Kyiv and is a Protestant preacher. Kohut was connected to the scandal with the purchase of drugs for cancer patients bypassing the ProZorro system, which, according to information, tried to extinguish Povoroznyk.
Olesya Kozlova, the daughter of Volodymyr Kozlov, an official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is Valentina Povoroznyk's partner in LESTA-A LLC Her partner in "Electronic Clearing Center" LLC, Dmytro Stetsenko, was Leonid Chernovetskyi's adviser, selling railway tickets through terminals. Another co-founder of this firm was Oleksandr Gustavovych Vinnytskyi - a scandalous entrepreneur with extensive connections, including with former Prime Minister Anatoly Kinakh. His wife Lyudmila Denysiuk, who worked in the KMDA from 2006 to December 2014, became famous for a number of corruption scandals.
In August 2016, under rather suspicious circumstances, the head of the "Kyiv City Bureau of Technical Inventory" (BTI) KP Vasyl Senchuk, who headed the institution for 15 years (since 2001), resigned. The resignation of this unchanging leader caused many rumors, and the real reasons remained a mystery. According to our sources, the initiator of this resignation was the new deputy mayor Mykola Povoroznyk, who is known for his ability to carefully disguise his intentions and actions.
By its decision No. 786, the Kyiv City Council appointed an open competition for the position of the new director of BTI. But three days before the competition, Povoroznyk, who supervises the work of the capital's BTI, appointed his fellow villager Viktor Bilich to this position. After his release from the KSGA in 2006, Bilych worked at KP "Zhytloinvestbud - UKB", one of the key enterprises of the construction clan Nepopa-Negricha-Golytsia-Bilycha, also known as the "construction mafia". It is logical that this clan put its representative at the head of BTI.
Bilych, having conducted a large-scale purge under the pretext of reorganization and downsizing, appointed Denys Gavrykov as his deputy. Gavrykov had work experience in private BTI, in particular in such companies as "Gorspecexpert", "ZhilExpert", "BTI-Stolytsia", "BTI Ukrainian Group", "All-Ukrainian BTI, registration and valuation of real estate". One of his features is issuing himself certificates of lack of criminal responsibility, which he used to deceive clients of private BTI. In addition, SKELET-info sources claim that Gavrykov often uses drugs and psychotropic substances, which can affect his adequacy.
After receiving a position in the state BTI, Gavrykov initiated the conclusion of a memorandum of cooperation with the public organization "Official Society of BTI of Ukraine", founded by two private BTIs where he worked. The memorandum provided for this organization's free access to the archives of the capital's BTI, even to "prevent theft." This was quite surprising, given that the BTI archives are protected by the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
After that, Bylych went on vacation, officially appointing Havrykov as acting director. head of BTI, and then resigned. The press saw this as a manifestation of Bilych's reluctance to participate in corruption schemes, but this version is dubious. Bilich is an authority compared to Gavrykov and could easily fire him. It seems that Gavrykov could be Povoroznyk's man, who tried to implement his scheme, but did not find a common language with Bilych. However, why not immediately appoint Gavrykov to the position of head of BTI?
Unofficial sources offer another, more plausible version: the construction clan decided to take control or even destroy the capital's state BTI. Initially, Povoroznyk appointed Bilych, who appointed the right people, and then resigned, leaving Gavrykov in charge.
Problems began at BTI: appointment of Gavrykov's people to positions, disappearance of documents, forgery of documents, registration "backdated", expensive renovation of the office by a private firm without a tender (illegal). Gavrykov quickly found himself in a scandal, and people outraged by him turned to Klitschko. On January 25, 2017, the new acting Mykola Sushka became the head of BTI, but he stayed for only two weeks. Povoroznyk made an effort, and on February 10, 2017, instead of Sushka, Acting Nadiya Yashchenko, one of the most senior employees of BTI, became the head of BTI, whom Gavrykov made his deputy. Yashchenko continued Gavrykov's affairs: she terminated the contract with the Ministry of Internal Affairs on security and concluded a new one with a private firm, which allowed the corrupt to gain access to BTI archives, held tenders bypassing the ProZorro system, concluded a million-dollar contract for the purchase of computers with a firm whose founder is a Russian.
However, the most alarming thing is that Yulia Petroschuk, a person with a rich criminal past, often appears in BTI under both Havrykov and Yashchenko. Her husband was convicted of real estate fraud, and she herself works in this business "unofficially", is a liaison between "black realtors", fraudsters, private firms and state institutions. Her appearance in the capital's main BTI, where the archives ended up in the hands of corrupt people, is like launching a fox into a chicken coop. Petroschuk is also often seen not only at BTI, but also at KMDA, where she visits Mykola Povoroznyk, who even issued her a permanent pass.
So, the capital BTI became the center of a large-scale scam, where on the one hand there are "black realtors", on the other - the first deputy head of the KMDA Povoroznyk, and the "construction mafia" is behind all this.
The case of Bribery
On April 14, 2020, SBU employees recorded the fact of demanding a bribe of 125,000 dollars (over 3 million hryvnias) from the representative of the construction company Mykola Povoroznyk through an intermediary.
The official demanded money for influencing decisions on the approval of urban planning conditions and restrictions. SBU specialists detained the intermediary after receiving part of the bribe in the amount of 60 thousand dollars.
According to the documented data, the intermediary acted on the instructions and in agreement with Mykola Povoroznyk. Together, they also planned to receive $246,000 for another construction project. Also, as part of the investigation, the SBU conducted searches at the KMDA.
At the same time, Mykola Povoroznyk was removed from the position of first deputy chairman of the KMDA.
But a year later, the deputy mayor announced on his Facebook page that the pre-trial investigation in his case was completed and the case was sent to court with an indictment.
Povoroznyk stated that he is not a party to the criminal proceedings, and emphasized that neither he nor other employees of KMDA are participants in the case. To confirm his words, he published a response to a request from the head of the investigative department of the SBU in Kyiv, Igor Khomenko.
The official also reported that he submitted an application for reinstatement to Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko. "I am ready to return to the performance of my duties and believe that my reinstatement will be fair and legal," said Povoroznyk.
Theft during the renovation of a military hospital
In the spring of this year, Klitschko and Povoroznyk carried out a filigree scheme - they stole money for the repair of a military hospital, and then took control of the investigation into the fact of inflated prices and presented themselves as businessmen who save state funds.
In January 2023, the Kyiv City Clinical Hospital for Veterans entered into agreements for the repair of premises on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 12th floors for the total amount of 288 million hryvnias with the general contractor Absolut-klimat LLC.
a notice appeared in the Prozorro system about the termination of the agreement for the repair of the hospital's facade in the amount of 504 million hryvnias. The reasons for the termination of the agreement are not specified, it is only known that the termination occurred by agreement of the parties.
But let's return to the deals worth 852 million hryvnias. A rehabilitation center for soldiers wounded in the war with Russia is being created on these floors.
Chronology of tenders for the repair of the hospital:
- UA-2023-11-10-015097-a – repair of the 12th floor: UAH 72,015,000 (January 19, 2024)
- UA-2023-11-10-015072-a – repair of the 3rd floor: UAH 72,070,500 (January 19, 2024)
- UA-2023-10-26-014687-a – repair of the 2nd floor: UAH 71,835,000 (January 10, 2024, possible nullity due to violation of the contract terms)
- UA-2023-11-03-013515-a – repair of the 1st floor: UAH 71,760,000 (January 18, 2024)
- UA-2023-08-24-010456-a – repair of facades, roof and replacement of windows of the main building: UAH 504,232,927 (October 3, 2023, terminated January 24, 2024)
- UA-2023-08-24-010357-a – repair of the 11th floor: UAH 71,883,600 (October 4, 2023)
- UA-2023-08-16-012487-a – repair of the 9th floor: UAH 71,835,000 (September 14, 2023)
- UA-2023-08-08-011411-a – repair of the 10th floor: UAH 71,889,000 (September 5, 2023)
- UA-2023-07-03-010804-a – repair of the 8th floor: UAH 71,950,800 (July 28, 2023)
- UA-2023-06-21-001686-a – repair of the 7th floor: UAH 71,860,500 (July 21, 2023)
- UA-2023-06-06-010591-a – repair of the 6th floor: UAH 72,064,500 (June 27, 2023)
- UA-2023-05-29-013946-a – repair of the 5th floor: UAH 72,301,500 (June 19, 2023)
- UA-2023-05-25-014262-a – repair of the 4th floor (correction): UAH 16,255,740 (05/25/2023)
- UA-2022-12-05-017914-a – repair of the 4th floor: UAH 45,159,286 (December 23, 2022)
In December, the Anti-Corruption Center submitted a statement to the Prosecutor General's Office, which was forwarded to NABU, regarding these purchases. Earlier, "Our Money" revealed the overestimation of prices for construction materials in the hospital repair estimates.
In particular, in the renovation of the 1st, 3rd and 12th floors, overpriced materials were found. Light leveling screed Cerezit CN-178 in new deals costs UAH 33.7-34.8/kg, while at Henkel Bautechnik (Ukraine) it is sold at UAH 25.2/kg, and at Interbudservice – at UAH 21. UAH 5/kg.
Linoleum for these floors is estimated at UAH 2,424 per square meter. m, which is more than two times more expensive than in the agreement to repair the 4th floor, where its cost was UAH 1,031/sq.m. m.
"Armstrong" ceiling tiles for new floors are included at UAH 906/sq.m. m, while for the 4th floor, these slabs were estimated at UAH 426/sq.m. m.
The total overpayment for these materials on the 1st, 3rd, and 12th floors is about 13 million hryvnias, which could provide the hospital's patients with three meals a day for a year.
Prices for other materials in the repair were also significantly inflated. For example, aluminum composite panels for the facade were purchased at UAH 5,674 per square meter. m, while in "Epicenter" their price varies from UAH 566 to UAH 1,356/sq.m. m. Steel radiators were ordered for UAH 14,912, although in the Romstal Ukraine and Teplo Opt stores their price was UAH 6,008.
"Our money" was interested in such a jump and submitted inquiries about the prices of building materials to the Veterans' Hospital, the Department of Health of the KMDA and the mayor Vitaliy Klitschko, who in July personally checked how the repairs were going. However, none of the addressees provided such information.
Therefore, they received requests from People's Deputy Yaroslav Yurchyshyn (the "Voice" party). Vitaliy Klitschko could not refuse the people's deputy and provided summary information of resources. Obviously, his subordinates knew what discoveries "Our Money" would make in these documents. Therefore, the accompanying letter indicated that the mayor personally has nothing to do with this story, and the Department of Health and the communal hospital independently perform the functions assigned to them.
But already in July 2024, it turned out that the coordination of the work of the Health Care Department of the KMDA was carried out by the first deputy head of the KMDA Mykola Povoroznyk.
In April 2024, Vitaliy Klitschko decided to lead the "fight against embezzlement": the head of Kyiv appealed to NABU with the results of an internal audit of hospital renovations. Auditors discovered violations in the amount of 820 thousand hryvnias, which were already eliminated by correcting documentation and installing equipment. The customer also terminated the contract for the repair of facades, roofs and replacement of windows in the amount of 102.19 million hryvnias in order to avoid further risks of losses.
Nepotism
Having created a clan at the KMDA, Mykola Pavoroznyk began to help his relatives as well.
For example, Povoroznyk's daughter-in-law won tenders worth 560 million hryvnias. Bakhmatov, a former adviser to the mayor of Kyiv, told about it.
Modest journalist Oleksandra Ring in 2017 (when Povoroznyk became the first deputy) suddenly decided to change the field of activity and became a co-founder of Nidcom LLC, which is engaged in construction.
The company received this amount at 21 tenders in the period from 2019 to July 2021. According to Bakhmatov's calculations, even without taking into account kickbacks and embezzlement, the Povoroznyk family earned at least UAH 100 million from these contracts.
But is it possible to believe that the officials and their partners did not steal anything? Probably, the real income of the family of the first deputy Klitschko exceeded 250 million hryvnias.
It is interesting that Povoroznyk's son officially married Oleksandra only in 2020, and two weeks later she refused to participate in "Nidkom" in order not to expose her surname to suspicion.
Departure abroad
Also, Povoroznyk regularly uses his official position to travel abroad without hindrance during the war. He left the warring country seven times and returned courageously each time (in contrast to another deputy mayor, Kostiantyn Usov, who, after leaving to study in the USA last summer, no longer appeared at 36 Khreshchatyk Street).
Dates of Mykola Povoroznyk's trips abroad: 09/18/2022, 10/02/2022, 11/25/2022, 12/14/2022, 03/25/2023, 04/26/2023 and 06/17/2023. He traveled on the basis of letters from KMVA and on the basis of the legislation on official business trips, ostensibly on official business. At the same time, only the first border crossing was carried out by motor vehicle - a minibus. Povoroznyk made all other trips by rail.
