The village of Yahidne in Chernihiv Oblast has become a symbol of the tragedy after the Russian occupation. It was here that hundreds of people were held for months in a school basement, dozens of whom died. After the liberation, the village was supposed to become an example of recovery and reconstruction, but in practice the process turned out to be completely different.
In June 2023, residents were presented with a large-scale reconstruction plan: phased renovation of the housing stock, restoration of infrastructure, creation of new public spaces. However, it is already clear today that the actual pace of work and the quality of execution raise serious questions.
Despite the official start of reconstruction in October 2023, the volume of work completed is only about 30%. In addition, a significant part of the repairs was carried out with gross violations of technology - insulation of facades in rainy weather or in winter, roofing work with damage to what has already been done. Residents of Yagodne have repeatedly complained about the shoddy and imitation reconstruction.
The investigation showed that high-ranking officials were directly involved in the organization of corruption schemes. These are the head of the Chernihiv Regional State Administration Vyacheslav Chaus, his deputy Dmytro Synenko, the head of the State Agency for Infrastructure Restoration and Development Serhiy Sukhomlyn, the head of the Restoration Service in Chernihiv region Ruslan Smianenko. Together with the heads of the contracting structures - BPP "Firma Nominal" (Shagovka V.P.) and LLC "Ukrainian-European Firm Diamant" (Maltsev O.I.) - they actually created an organized criminal group.
The scheme worked simply: tenders were held in violation of the law "On Public Procurement", which allowed the cost of works to be overstated and part of the budget funds to be appropriated. Instead of high-quality reconstruction, the community received under-repaired and questionable quality buildings, while tens of millions of hryvnias ended up in the pockets of officials and contractors.
A complaint has now been filed with a request to the regulatory authorities to verify the legality of the actions of officials of the Chernihiv Regional State Administration and the State Recovery Agency, to clarify the grounds for concluding contracts, to determine the amount of damages caused, and to hold those responsible accountable.
The reconstruction of Yagodny should become an example of restoring justice and caring for people, not another corruption scheme.
