In May 2025, Kyiv signed contracts worth over UAH 4.5 billion, of which over UAH 370 million was allocated to the next stage of implementing the “outdoor lighting control system.” This megaproject has been absorbing the capital’s billions for the seventh year in a row, and its sole contractor remains a company associated with businessman Hlib Lvov, the ex-husband of gymnast Lilia Podkopayeva.
This is reported by publication .
According to the public analytics module BI.Prozorro, the largest amount of money in May went to construction and repair work — UAH 1.78 billion. But the most expensive individual contract of the month was for lighting: KP “Informatika” paid over UAH 370 million for the supply of 131 control panels.
The contractor was the SE “Hidden” LLC “Hidden Energy”, which has already received orders worth UAH 2.18 billion through Prozorro alone. The founder of the company is the LLC of the same name, the ultimate beneficiary is Hlib Lviv, and the manager is Artem Bugay. All orders come exclusively from the KP “Informatika”.
Kyiv began implementing the automatic street lighting control system in 2018 — without tenders, with the wording “no competition.” The first contract was awarded to the company “Hidden Energy.Uy”, which at that time also belonged to Lviv. In 2020, the newly created SE “Hidden” continued its work with the same team and owner.
Since then, the KP “Informatika” has concluded more than 20 contracts worth more than 2.37 billion UAH. All of them are with “Hidden”, except for one minimal agreement for 305 thousand UAH. The project is supposed to ensure energy efficiency, control over networks and prompt response to breakdowns, but the city does not provide any official assessment of the system’s effectiveness.
In 2021, the KP "Informatika" commissioned a study of the economic effect of the system, but when asked by journalists, it replied that it "does not have such information." The only source of data is an interview with Hlib Lvov himself, who in 2020 stated that the savings in 2019 amounted to 25 million UAH. Against the background of the billions spent, this looks quite modest.
The KP "Informatika" is subordinate to the Department of Information and Communication Technologies of the Kyiv City State Administration, which was overseen by Petro Olenych from 2021 to 2025. In March 2025, he was dismissed after suspicion in a case of fraud with the capital's land.
Today, the KP “Informatics” is headed by Mykola Zhandorov, and the director of the specialized department is Viktoria Itskovich.
Despite billions of rubles in expenses, the city authorities have not yet published any detailed reports on the project's results. The Prozorro documents contain standard phrases about "energy efficiency" and "automation", but Kyiv residents have not received a clear answer to the question of how much was actually saved and what indicators were improved.
Against the backdrop of war and budget deficits, this raises more and more questions. Will the project of the KP "Informatics" become an example of true digitalization - or another expensive imitation?
