Deputy Head of the State Service for Food Safety and Consumer Protection Andrei Kreitor is from that category of officials to whom journalists rarely pay attention.
His position is not very high, and his declarations are quite modest. However, his family's lifestyle makes it clear that their expenses do not exactly match their income. We are talking about the mad passion for travel of the official’s wife, Ekaterina Kreitor, who, according to his financial statements, is raising children and does not officially work anywhere.
Andrey Kreitor began his career in the structures of the SBU, then briefly moved to work at the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine, and then to the Administration of Seaports. Since April 2024 he has been working in the State Food and Consumer Service.
Kreitor worked at the Security Service of Ukraine from 2012 to 2021. During this period, the heads of the secret service were the most odious representatives of the team of fugitive President Viktor Yanukovych. Such as Igor Kalinin and Alexander Yakimenko.
The first was not only the head of the SBU, but also an adviser to Yanukovych, and his name was among the persons whose accounts were blocked by a decision of the Council of the European Union. Yakimenko, a state traitor, deprived of Ukrainian citizenship, after the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, was involved in the occupation of the Kherson region.
At the same time, Kreitor sat out Nalyvaichenko, Gritsak, and partially Ivan Bakanov in the SBU. And, according to the declarations, he received social benefits as a participant in the ATO.
The Kreitor family’s connection with the “regionals” is not unique. His mother Elena Vladimirovna Kreitor, who worked as a neurologist at the Golovanovsky central district hospital (Kirovograd region), was a member of the pro-Russian Opposition Bloc party in 2015 and ran from it for the Golovanovsky district council. True, in 2020, Elena Kreitor changed her political vector and ran for the “European Solidarity” of Petro Poroshenko.
Unlike his mother, Andrei Kreitor continued to work for a person who at one time was a member of the Party of Regions and against whose activities, in particular, the National Corps protested. We are talking about the head of the Association of Sea Ports of Ukraine, Alexander Golodnitsky, who headed this structure until the spring of 2023. Before USPA, Golodnitsky worked at the Delta Pilot State Enterprise, and it was in this position that he was accused of surrendering national interests in favor of Russia when purchasing software for regulating ship traffic. From 2010 to 2015, Golodnitsky was a deputy of the Mykolaiv Regional Council from the Party of Regions.
Approximately from 2021, that is, from the moment he began working at the USPA, Andrei Kreitor began to gradually improve his own property situation. At first he rented an apartment in Odessa, not far from Mikhailovskaya Square. And in 2022, he moved to a building with an area of 160 square meters in the village of Tairovo near Odessa. Kreitor does not indicate the rental amount in his declarations.
According to the latest financial statements, Andrei Kreitor lives in the apartment of his wife’s parents in Kyiv. The apartment is located on the outskirts of Kyiv towards the picturesque Mirror Lakes. A certificate from the register of rights makes it clear that the wife’s parents purchased a three-room apartment in a residential complex in 2013. And in 2020 - another one, with a total area of 55 square meters.
On real estate websites, a two-room apartment in a residential complex where Andrei Kreitor, deputy head of the State Food and Consumer Service, lives, can be purchased for $96,000.
Neither the official himself nor his wife officially have their own housing. As well as vehicles. Although it’s a bit of a stretch to believe that Kreitor goes to work from the Minsk massif to Independence Square, where the main office of the State Food and Consumer Service is located, by metro. In addition, the court registry contains a record that in the summer of 2022 Andrei Kreitor violated traffic rules and received a fine.
The social networks of his wife Ekaterina Kreitor, née Kushchienko, are full of colorful travels in huge quantities - Amsterdam, Cologne, Paris, Sharm al-Sheikh, Vienna, Dubai. All of these cities can hardly be called budget, especially considering the accommodation in 5-star hotels, which the official’s wife notes.
Now Ekaterina Kreitor’s Instagram is closed, and only friends can view its content. Although Andrei Kreitor has a page on this social network, he does not publish any content. However, even though the profile is empty, his following can make preferences clear. Kreitor follows the pages of several luxury hotels in Egypt, the Bonjour travel agency and the travel blog Tasteinhotels. The latter is signed up by such wealthy people as the owner of the construction company Taryan, Artur Mkhitaryan, and the son-in-law of the developer Leonid Yurushev, the former head of the Cherkasy Regional State Administration, Alexander Skichko.
Despite the fact that Ekaterina Kreitor closed her Instagram, she still could not resist and in August 2023 published a photo from her next trip on an open Facebook profile. The photo shows skyscrapers, one of which gives away that the photo was taken in Dubai.
The building on the far left below is the Kayan Tower, the tallest building in the world, twisted 90 degrees. The tower is located in the affluent Dubai Marina area, which is very popular with Russians. On one side of it there is access to the Persian Gulf, on the other there is a huge walking area with a lake on which luxury yachts are parked.
Ekaterina Kreitor is interested in psychology and is currently studying this specialty. If you look at her professional profile, you don't see an insane amount of preferences underneath her photos. That is, psychology can only be considered a hobby.
At the same time, Andrei Kreitor’s declarations do not contain large amounts of savings that could allow his wife to travel to the most expensive cities in the world. In 2023, the official declared 960 million hryvnia and $43,000 in cash. His wife has only 2,000 euros in savings.
One would think that Ekaterina Kreitor is sponsored by her parents, in whose apartment she and her husband officially live. But this is unlikely - the father works in the production of refrigeration equipment, and information about the mother could not be found.
Therefore, the question of where Andrei Kreitor got the money to travel for his wife, and whether former regional leaders are helping him financially, remains open. As well as a question for the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption, which should be interested in the lifestyle of the family of a simple official of the State Food and Consumer Service.
