When can the head of the Kharkov regional council, Tatyana Egorova-Lutsenko, expect an administrative protocol on corruption?

During the war, the driver and husband of the chairman of the Kharkov regional council, under the guise of volunteers, resolved family business affairs abroad. The media and deputies accuse Tatyana Egorova-Lutsenko of using a departmental driver for personal purposes to travel abroad during the war

This year in Ukraine is passing to the accompaniment of high-profile corruption scandals. The Kharkov region did not escape this fate, where the head of the regional council, representative of the presidential party, Tatyana Egorova-Lutsenko, was accused of abuses.

In general, the story that Egorova-Lutsenko found herself in is quite typical for Ukraine. Nevertheless, if everything that was revealed as a result of this scandal is confirmed, the head of the Kharkov regional council will have to appear in court and, at a minimum, lose his position.

As former people's deputy Igor Moseychuk reported, in October last year, when almost half of the Kharkov region was still under Russian occupation, the husband of the head of the Kharkov regional council, Vitaly Lutsenko, being a man liable for military service of military age, traveled abroad in his wife's Skoda Super B company car. At the same time, the driver of Egorova-Lutsenko, an employee of the regional council, Valery Klyuchko, was driving the car.

Both crossed the state border at the Mogilev-Podolsky checkpoint in the Vinnytsia region, from where they headed to the Chisinau airport. The husband and driver of the head of the regional council had no problems crossing the border, despite the ban on traveling abroad for men of military age, because both were entered into the “SHLYAKH” system as volunteers.

However, the purpose of Vitaly Lutsenko’s trip was clearly not volunteering. From Chisinau, the husband of the Kharkov official flew to the Cote d'Azur of France to resolve family business issues. The fact is that Vitaly Lutsenko is a resident of France and owns a business there - a restaurant and a nightclub.

This information is confirmed by French registries. According to their data, Vitaly Lutsenko lives in Nice, France and is the owner of a nightclub in Nice called No Name and the MIDI AU SOLEIL restaurant on the embankment of Cannes.

In fact, Lutsenko concluded the deal to purchase the MIDI AU SOLEIL restaurant in 2022, when he was traveling abroad using his volunteer documents in his wife’s company car.

At the same time, one cannot help but pay attention to the fact that Lutsenko, upon entering France, indicated his family status as “not married.” Apparently, this was done so that, according to European criteria, he would not fall under the status of Politically Exposed Person (politically exposed persons) and to avoid checks by the French anti-corruption authorities, and they, in turn, would not report him and his assets to Ukrainian law enforcement officers.

Thus, the situation looks like the head of the Kharkov regional council used her official position to organize her husband’s travel abroad during the war, provided him with her official car, which is on the balance sheet of the regional council and is maintained, serviced and refueled at the expense of taxpayers, and In addition to the car, she also sent her driver, who also receives a salary from the budget.

A separate interesting question is on what grounds and through whose efforts the driver and the official’s husband were included in the “SHLYAKH” system. And although it is necessary to answer this question, especially against the backdrop of scandals involving the use of the “SHLYAKH” system as a loophole for the illegal departure of draft dodgers from the country, even without this answer there are more than enough reasons for the serious interest of anti-corruption authorities in Tatyana Egorova-Lutsenko.

Moreover, the fact that Lutsenko and Klyuchko crossed the state border is confirmed by our sources. It is noteworthy that as a volunteer, Egorova-Lutsenko’s driver traveled abroad at least three times and, apparently, in the same official car. It is difficult to imagine that a full-time driver, whose official duties include providing transport services personally to the head of the regional council, traveled abroad during working hours for any other reason than to resolve the personal issues of his immediate superior.

One cannot help but pay attention to another interesting fact. Soon after the described incident, in the winter of 2022, Egorova-Lutsenko included her husband in the official economic delegation from the Kharkov region and went with him to the same France. This time to the city of Strasbourg. The status of Vitaly Lutsenko, who is the president of the regional karate federation, attended the international event remains a mystery.

When information about Vitaly Lutsenko’s trips in an official car, as well as about the business of the family of the head of the regional council, spread across the media, journalists repeatedly tried to hear some explanations from Egorova-Lutsenko, but did not hear anything that would in any way refute the information that was unpleasant for the official . Egorova Lutsenko did not say what her husband was doing in France, what car and at whose expense he traveled, as well as about his volunteer activities, about which nothing can be found on the public pages of the Lutsenko family.

Egorova-Lutsenko responded to the scandal in a typical manner for Ukrainian officials, calling it all the machinations of political enemies. They say that “dirt is being poured on her and her family” by some pro-Russian “representatives of the damned OPPL.” At the same time, some publications dedicated to her husband’s French voyage began to mysteriously disappear from the pages of online media. It was as if someone was trying to hide this information from the public.

Be that as it may, the scandal with her husband’s travel abroad could result in serious consequences for Yegorova-Lutsenko, including deprivation of her position. Moreover, in Ukraine there is already a similar precedent - the case of Chernigov ex-mayor Vladislav Atroshenko.

At the very beginning of the war, Atroshenko sent his wife abroad in his Toyota Camry official car. Already in July, when Atroshenko was banned from leaving the country, he sent his driver to his wife’s car so that he would give his wife the Tesla, and he would take the official Toyota. As we see, the situation is almost identical to what happened with Egorova-Lutsenko.

As a result, for using official cars and the driver for personal interests, the courts of two instances found Atroshenko guilty of a corruption offense and removed him from office. The same thing should now await Egorova-Lutsenko.

However, law enforcement officials have not yet responded in any way to the scandal with the head of the Kharkov Regional Council, although there are more than enough reasons for a reaction.

And the leadership of the Servant of the People party might well have questions about Yegorova-Lutsenko. Her life is clearly out of line with the agenda set by the Office of the President - if you work for the state, you must have a center of vital interests here. But, apparently, for Egorova-Lutsenko and her husband this is less important than restaurants and nightclubs on the Cote d'Azur.