Churchill, Mandela and... Valentin Reznichenko. Who stole money on the roads during the war?

According to investigators, a company associated with the ex-head of the Dnepropetrovsk Regional State Administration inflated the cost of road work by a quarter of a billion

A stocky, red-bearded man sits obediently between the two defenders. This is Valentin Reznichenko, twice chairman of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional State Administration during the presidencies of Poroshenko and Zelensky. Reznichenko disappeared from political radars at the end of January 2023. Formally, he “left” power voluntarily, on the basis of a submitted application. In fact, Reznichenko was kicked out of the president’s team as a too “muddy” character involved in fraud within the framework of the “Big Construction” project. At the same time, the deputy head of the Presidential Office, Kirill Timoshenko, accompanied the ex-head of the Regional State Administration.

Now Reznichenko is returning to the media lens. But in an unusual role. He is a suspect in a massive road deal that took place at the height of the Russian offensive in 2022.

In the courtroom, the former head of the Dnepropetrovsk region did not behave in a very high-status manner. Sometimes it seemed that Reznichenko was openly laughing at the servant of Themis.

A few notes from the dialogue:

– What are you doing now? – Investigating judge of the High Anti-Corruption Court Lesya Fedorak asked the suspect.

“In court,” answered Valentin Reznichenko without blinking his eyes.

– What is your approximately monthly income? – the judge was interested.

“Now I have no income,” said the former head of the Regional State Administration.

- At all? – Not believing it, the servant of Themis asked.

“Yes,” Reznichenko assured and added that he lives on savings (the amount of such savings, according to the prosecutor’s estimates, is measured at UAH 17 million).

– Do you have someone on your payroll? – the judge continued the interrogation.

“Dogs,” Reznichenko said quite seriously.

- And the children? – the lawyer rushed to help.

“Well, children, of course,” the suspect noted. And then he said that they lived abroad, but during these summer months they visited him at home.

Further in the material of the “Glavkom” we tell how a figure who lasted six years in the chair of the Dnepropetrovsk Regional State Administration found himself under investigation.

Prosecution version

On September 12 of this year, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office released a message: suspicions were announced against four former influential officials of the Dnipropetrovsk region and the ex-head of a company close to the authorities. These persons, according to law enforcement officials, artificially and unreasonably increased spending on local roads during 2022 - up to UAH 1.5 billion. Subsequently, it was for this amount that contracts were concluded for the performance of relevant work with a company associated with the then current chairman of the Dnepropetrovsk Regional State Administration, Valentin Reznichenko. The conclusions of the examinations were confirmed: the contractor company from Dnepr, Stroyinvest Engineering, overestimated the cost of materials by more than UAH 286 million. Some of these funds were transferred to the accounts of other companies associated with the former top official and his deputy.

Already in court, the prosecutor described in more detail the “food chain” built by officials of the Dnepropetrovsk Regional State Administration. According to the prosecution, the organizer of the scheme was the then chairman of the regional state administration and head of the regional military administration, Valentin Reznichenko. In particular, with the introduction of martial law, the powers of regional leaders expanded in terms of redistributing expenditures of regional budgets without convening appropriate sessions of councils. This made it possible to accumulate funds for the operational maintenance of public roads of local importance in the Dnepropetrovsk region. In 2022, without holding tenders, the Department of Housing, Communal Services and Construction of the Dnepropetrovsk Regional State Administration, which was headed by the now suspect Andrey Kolomoets, entered into a number of agreements with Stroyinvest Engineering LLC to carry out road repairs. Law enforcement officers believe that the contractor did not actually perform operational work (pothole repairs, cleaning roadsides, markings), but carried out major road repairs. This entailed significant expenses from the budget, which the State Treasury does not finance in the first place during a war.

Also involved in the illegal scheme was the former head of the road department of the Dnepropetrovsk Regional State Administration, Viktor Faychuk, who also received suspicion. During March-September 2022, the official drew up 18 road inspection reports, which were then visited by Stroyinvest Engineering LLC. By the way, this company is no stranger to Faichuk. Until February 9, 2021, he served as deputy director of the company. Together with him at the same enterprise, his wife Victoria worked as a logistics manager. After his appointment to the Regional State Administration, according to the investigation, Faychuk continued to coordinate the activities of Stroyinvest Engineering LLC.

According to the pre-trial investigation, in 2022, part of the funds allocated by Stroyinvest Engineering LLC for the roads of the Dnepropetrovsk region, through a number of companies, reached PJSC Zaporozhye Quarry Management. According to the prosecutor, the founder of this company is an enterprise owned by the father of driver Reznichenko, Vyacheslav Bardachenko. This name is worth remembering, since it will still appear in the case materials.

During wartime, Vyacheslav Bardachenko freely crossed the state border by car 24 times. This was facilitated at that time by the chairman of the Regional State Administration, Valentin Reznichenko, who issued a permit to Bardachenko as a driver to meet the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The departure of volunteer drivers through the Shlyakh system is a legal loophole that is often used by men of military age to evade mobilization. The names of the fellow travelers who were in the cabin were unexpected: the mother of the ex-deputy head of the Office of President Kirill Tymoshenko, Ksenia Tymoshenko, Yana Khlanta, the ex-wife of Valentin Reznichenko, Tatyana, with her daughter from her first marriage, Vladislava Kurdel. These voyages were also carried out in Reznichenko’s own car, which was driven by Bardachenko.

In addition, at the height of the great war, Stroyinvest Engineering LLC transferred 475 million UAH to the account of BNM LLC, which at one time belonged to the former deputy chairman of the Dnepropetrovsk Regional State Administration, Maxim Bespalchuk. Now this ex-official has also received suspicion in this criminal case.

A fitness trainer from Dnieper, Yana Khlanta, occupies a special place in the high-profile criminal proceedings. According to investigators, she and Valentin Reznichenko have been living together since 2019. At the same time, during the entire time he worked in the civil service, the ex-head of the Dnepropetrovsk region did not declare it. The media call Hlanta the girlfriend of the ex-official. Before the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation, Reznichenko and Khlanta traveled abroad together from Ukraine several times.

In May 2021, the girl Reznichenko became one of the co-founders of Stroyinvest Engineering LLC. A year later, in May 2022, Yana Khlanta received UAH 5 million in dividends from her company.

Another interesting point. In 2022-2023, Stroyinvest Engineering LLC, Seventh Consulting Group LLC (owned by Reznichenko) and individual entrepreneur Yana Khlanta used the same IP address to use the Client-Bank system.

There is a rather piquant detail in the criminal case, which contrasts with other episodes of suspicion. According to the prosecutor, who referred to the correspondence between Reznichenko and his driver Igor Bardachenko, a number of bank card accounts were opened for unknown persons who did not even know about it. Specific cards served as a kind of transit for the withdrawal of funds by suspects. As an example, the prosecutor cited the story of citizen Ruslan Ogiiko. The said man’s card was replenished by the driver Reznichenko, but Mr. Ogiiko himself has not had access to it since 2019. But the Ogiiko card “existed” a life of its own: in 2019-2022, 3.4 million UAH were written off from this card, mainly for the purchase abroad of valuable goods from the world brands Louis Vuitton, Alexander McQueen and Bellagio.

“The specified time calculations coincide with the crossing of the border and stay outside of Ukraine by Yana Khlanta,” the prosecutor amazed with piquant details.

Moreover, Ogiiko’s card appeared while paying for goods in the Ukrainian Comfy network. The investigation found out: the number of the subscriber who made the purchase belongs to Yana Hlanta!

It is worth noting: so far the anti-corruption authorities have no complaints against the girl Valentina Reznichenko. Suspicion was not announced to her (but the director of Stroyinvest Engineering LLC, Dmitry Litnarovich, who is under investigation, was suspicious). At the same time, as Glavkom previously found out, in the spring of 2024, Yana Hlanta was very fussy and threatened detectives of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau with opening a criminal case. This happened after searches of a fitness trainer’s apartment in connection with the theft of money for road repairs in the Dnepropetrovsk region.

Protection version

Reznichenko is defended from attacks by anti-corruption authorities by lawyer Vladimir Krivenko, who not so long ago was himself a prosecutor. He worked as deputy head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office of Nazar Kholodnitsky, but resigned from his position in 2019 for health reasons. As the media wrote, the real reason was allegedly Krivenko’s transfer of information about the investigation to suspect Ruslan Zhurilo. The meeting of these individuals was filmed by NABU detectives. When the recording was shown to Krivenko, he decided to quit immediately.

The lawyer built his line of defense in an original way. He began with the fact that “outstanding statesmen do not appear out of nowhere.”

“This is the result of sweat and blood. It can be argued that Winston Churchill and Nelson Mandela did not just appear. These figures, before joining the public service, achieved success in other areas... Who is Valentin Reznichenko? This is a man who came to public service by making himself. He worked as vice-president of the Ukrainian Media Holding, where there were 100 thousand employees... And Valentin Mikhailovich came from a respected position to the public service (in February 2015, President Petro Poroshenko appointed Valentin Reznichenko chairman of the Zaporozhye Regional State Administration - “Commander in Chief”). Hence the rhetorical question: Did Reznichenko need public service, or did Reznichenko need public service? I believe that it was Reznichenko who was needed by the civil service, because he was an effective manager,” lawyer Krivenko scattered praises.

The defense rejected the prosecutor's assertion of losses in the amount of more than UAH 286 million. According to the suspect’s lawyers, as of mid-October 2022, there was not a single regulatory document in Ukraine that would oblige the customer and contractor to determine the average cost of building materials based on price monitoring carried out by the State Enterprise “National Institute for Infrastructure Development”.

Lawyer Krivenko’s explanations for why local roads in the Dnepropetrovsk region were being repaired in the first year of the massive invasion of the occupiers boiled down to the fact that the regional authorities created the conditions for the Armed Forces of Ukraine to quickly transfer equipment and ammunition to the front.

The defense responded separately to information about Ogiyko’s card, which Reznichenko’s girlfriend allegedly uses. According to their arguments, Yana Hlanta was physically unable to make purchases because she was vacationing in Greece, and at that moment funds were being debited from Ogiiko’s card in Las Vegas. At the same time, the defense kept silent about the transaction in the Comfy store...

In general, the lawyers insisted on their client’s innocence and asked the court not to grant the prosecutor’s request to detain Valentin Reznichenko. We must admit: in the end, the court listened to the defense and set a bail of 30 million UAH for the suspected ex-head of the regional state administration.

Hlanty company. How the tracks were covered

After a series of journalistic investigations about corruption in the repair of roads in the Dnipropetrovsk region was published at the beginning of November 2022 (before this, this was systematically signaled by “Our Money”, which monitors government procurement), persons close to Valentin Reznichenko left Budinvest Engineering LLC. Co-owner and fitness trainer Jana Hlanta was the first to leave. This happened on November 9, 2022.

In addition, the contribution to the authorized capital of the enterprise in the amount of 514.5 thousand UAH, which was owned by Khlanta, turned out to be in the assets of another co-owner of Stroyinvest Engineering, Pavel Chukhno.

On June 27, 2024, Lithuanian citizen Gramba Laurynas entered the scandalous company. He single-handedly concentrated control over the authorized capital of Budinvest Engineering LLC in the amount of UAH 1.05 million, which previously belonged to the aforementioned Pavel Chukhno and the director of the company Dmitry Litnarovich.

At the beginning of July, the Lithuanian legally became the owner of the company from Dnieper.

***

Indirectly, in the case of “cutting” money for roads in the Dnepropetrovsk region, references were made to the shadow curator of the “Big Construction” project and former freelance adviser to Reznichenko, Yuri Golik. The prosecutor confirmed the well-known fact that in 2021 Golik, Reznichenko and Khlanta traveled abroad together.

Even in Golik’s phone, the investigation came across his correspondence with an unknown person, where, among other things, there was the following phrase: “Lawyers must sort everything out.”

What was meant is unknown. Now Golik has not been declared a suspect, but NABU detectives are closely involved in him in criminal proceedings regarding the leak of documents related to the investigation of corruption during the implementation of the “Big Construction”. From the latest: the appeal chamber of the High Anti-Corruption Court seized three iPhones used by Yuri Golik...