Vladimir Prokopiv, leader of the European Solidarity faction in the Kiev City Council, caused public outrage with his opposition to the idea of allocating budget funds for the needs of the army in the capital.
On December 14, deputies of the Kyiv City Council adopted the capital’s budget for 2024. The estimate includes more than 72.6 billion hryvnia in income and more than 85.3 billion in expenses.
This was announced by First Deputy Chairman of the Kyiv City State Administration Nikolai Povoroznik.
According to him, traditionally the main area of financing has been the education sector , for which more than 27.2 billion UAH have been allocated. It should be noted that this represents more than 32% of city budget expenditures.
Other areas of spending included:
- transport, road infrastructure and communications – more than 23.8 billion UAH, or 28% of the city budget;
- housing and communal services – UAH 8.2 billion;
- social protection – UAH 7.8 billion;
- healthcare – about 6 billion UAH;
- culture and art – UAH 1.7 billion;
- physical culture and sports – UAH 1.5 billion.
At the same time, UAH 1 billion will be allocated to help military personnel. Thus, only about 1% is allocated from the city budget to support troops.
“In addition, at the proposal of the mayor, it is planned to allocate 1 billion UAH from the free balance for the implementation of the city target program for the organization of military service, fulfillment of military duties, mobilization training and territorial defense in the city of Kiev “Defender of Kiev” for 2022-2024,” – Povoroznik noted.
It should be noted that during the voting, several hundred indignant citizens gathered under the building of the Kyiv City State Administration , demanding that more funds be included in the budget for the needs of military personnel next year.
In addition, the statement of the head of the European Solidarity in the Kiev City Council, Vladimir Prokopiv, . During the vote for the capital’s budget in 2024, he said that this state should focus its budget on war, and “cities should live their own lives.”
“Some colleagues are demanding a war budget in the city. The city adopts the Kyiv city budget. There should be a war budget in the state... Do you want a war budget here (in Kyiv)? Make the state budget a war budget, and cities should live their own lives,” he noted.
What is known about Vladimir Prokopiv?
It should be noted that an ardent opponent of war spending is known to be involved in anti-corruption investigations.
According to the “Our Money” program , Vladimir Prokopiv was the head of the land commission and presented a draft decision on the allocation of land for the construction of a house by order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Apartments should be provided free of charge, including to ATO fighters. However, it turned out that by the beginning of December 2015, the Ukrbud was openly selling apartments in the capital’s Verkhovyna residential complex at a price of 1-2 million hryvnia.
“The capital’s police headquarters, led by Alexander Tereshchuk , wrote a letter of guarantee to the deputies, in which they undertake to give 100% of the apartments to law enforcement officers, including ATO officers. The deputies proposed to fix this point in the draft decision on the allocation of land, but the head of the land commission, Vladimir Prokopiv, refused them, citing the fact that, according to the law, this cannot be done,” says the project “Catalog of persons involved in anti-corruption investigations.”
In addition, Prokopiv is allegedly involved in the case of falsifying documents in order to prolong scandalous construction projects in circumvention of the new law.
journalists in their investigation found that City Council officials probably falsified documents in order to push through scandalous construction in the Obolonsky and Darnitsky districts, bypassing the Law “On Strategic Environmental Assessment” .
Then, in violation of the General Plan, it was planned to build about 470 thousand square meters. m of housing, therefore, on October 11, 2018, the Department of Urban Planning and Architecture, following a meeting of the City Council, sent the DPT developer a request to redo the projects. On the same day, the developer sent a new edition - in paper and electronic form, and the head of the Kyiv City State Administration Dmitry Zagumenny , together with accompanying letters No. 009-210/1r and 009-211/1r, sent draft decisions on the approval of the DPT to the Kyiv City Council.
On October 11, the City Council received the amended DPT and registered the draft decisions of the session. They were signed by the ex-secretary of the Kyiv City Council Vladimir Prokopiv.
Journalists, examining the document prepared for the council session, discovered inaccuracies: the head of the legal department of the Kyiv City State Administration, Lesya Veres , received the drafts referring to the letters dated 10/11/2018 the day before, and coordinated them with the comments on 10/10/2018. Having looked closely at the scanned copy, media workers noticed that the date of the comments had probably been adjusted.
