In the last few years, the architectural appearance of Kyiv has been changing quite quickly, sometimes even aggressively. However, schemes for theft of funds during construction and repairs are also developing quite quickly.
One of those to whom both citizens and law enforcement agencies have questions about budget money is the CP "Spetszhilfond", which is engaged in the construction of residential buildings and structures, attracting investments, construction of residential and non-residential stock, parking lots and the like, content housing stock of the capital.
There are suspicions that the mayor of Kyiv Vitaliy Klitschko, together with the director of the Department of Construction and Housing Boris Robotnik, the heads of the Spetszhilfond enterprise Vladimir Shariy and Vadim Shpachuk, are not distributing billions of budget funds as required by law. Who suffers from construction delays?
KP "Spetszhilfond" - what was it created for?
The communal enterprise "Spetszhilfond" is subordinate to the Department of Construction and Housing of the Kyiv City State Administration, which has been headed by Boris Rabotnik since July 2, 2021.
The activities of the enterprise “Spetszhilfond” can be regarded as “spit in the face of society”, since very often the enterprise appears in the reports of the police and the prosecutor’s office, auditors almost every year find violations and shortcomings in the work of the enterprise amounting to large sums.
Thus, in 2017-2018, the company under the leadership of Shariy committed financial violations totaling 240.47 million hryvnia. And during 2020-2021, the management of KP “Spetszhilfond” committed violations and shortcomings in its work totaling 70.4 million hryvnia.
Against the backdrop of the exposure of these financial violations, law enforcement officers conducted a number of searches in 2021 at the office of the Spetszhilfond KP. In turn, Vitali Klitschko did not like the massive searches at the utility company. According to him, this was a special operation against him personally. It seemed that the mayor was trying to somehow cover up his “friends” with whom he has common interests.
In general, KP “Spetszhilfond” does not escape from corruption scandals. It is worth recalling the case conducted by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, when the ex-head of the enterprise sold 20 apartments in a new building in Pechersk at significantly reduced prices. As a result, the Kyiv community received less than 5.9 million UAH.
Impressive? If not, then let’s remember another interesting story, when KP “Spetszhilfond” unreasonably inflated prices for a major overhaul of a school by more than 350 thousand hryvnia. The Kyiv City Prosecutor's Office spoke about this.
And that’s not all... “Spetszhilfond” overpaid its contractors about 2.72 million hryvnia for the reconstruction of the building of the Kiev-Pechersk Lyceum No. 171 “Leader” in 2020.
And these are only those cases that became known to law enforcement and society. But one can imagine what is happening behind the closed doors of the Spetszhilfond community center without spectators.
Construction scam of KP “Spetszhilfond” lasting 7 years
According to the LUN profile website, since 2010, Spetszhilfond has built 18 houses, three more are under construction. However, KP officials are in no hurry to complete construction of the houses, moving the commissioning date for unclear reasons that can only be guessed at.
KP “Spetszhilfond” has been building one of these houses for more than 7 years. It is famous for the fact that Klitschko planned to allocate apartments there for hostel residents. It is known as the "killer house" due to the presence of microscopic fungi that cause a constant stench in the hostel and can cause a number of diseases in people, including asthma, tuberculosis and lung cancer.
“Our house has not yet been recognized as unsafe, despite the fact that 309 pathogenic fungi and another 16 subgroups of each of them were found in it. Back in 2016, the chief sanitary doctor said that it was simply impossible to live in this hostel! At the same time, they didn’t want to build a new house for us right away, but wanted to renovate the hostel. However, later at a session of the City Council they decided to build a new house. Then it just started to become a mess…” says one of the hostel residents.
It is known that since 2016, Spetszhilfond has already concluded 63 contracts as part of the implementation of this construction project for a total amount of 1.24 billion hryvnia and has replaced more than one contractor.
According to the Kiev resident, construction was stopped three times: they tried to rework the documentation so that the residents would receive new housing at the rate of 1 sq.m of the old surface = 1 sq.m. m of new (they promised to provide housing to residents of a dilapidated building at the rate of 1:1.5 by square footage). The second time construction was stopped due to coronavirus, because builders were prohibited from working. Then the war began. Then they stopped paying contractors, saying, “Do everything at your own expense,” residents report.
“Now the director of the Department of Construction and Housing of the Kyiv City State Administration Boris Rabotnik is shouting that there is no money for construction! And during this time, construction was delayed in our building, more than 200 people died from cancer and tuberculosis. The last case was literally 2 weeks ago... A 57-year-old man died of lung cancer, and how many people are still sick. And the children who were born immediately went from the maternity hospital to the hospital with manure in their lungs,” says a resident of the hostel.
Another resident of the house notes that the reason for the delay in construction is very simple - theft of money. That is, people have been waiting for housing for years and are forced to live in simply terrible conditions that are harmful to life and health, while the Spetszhilfond enterprise is lining its pockets with money. And some did not get this housing, because they died from the severe consequences of the fungus... Although the house was supposed to be built in 2021.
Who systematically “fills their pockets” with money from those who hold them and has connections with the criminal world?
Since March 10, 2016, KP Spetszhilfond has been headed by Vladimir Shariy, who previously worked as deputy director of the said enterprise since February 2015. Also in the VIII convocation of the Kyiv City Council, Shariy was simultaneously a deputy from Solidarity and was a member of the standing commission of the City Council on issues of urban planning, architecture and land use.
The name of the scandalous capital developer is often associated by the media with connections to the criminal world. Thus, he is called involved in the illegal development of Zhukov Island in Kyiv and, in particular, the construction of the palace of a crime boss close to the fugitive President Viktor Yanukovych - Yuri Ivanyushchenko, who is now a fugitive from justice.
In addition, Vladimir Shariy was a partner in Orbita-Group LLC, known to many - Alexander Lishchenko, better known in narrow circles as "Licha", who belonged to the criminal group "Pryshcha". It was Lishchenko, they say, who controlled the capital’s largest market, “Troeshchina,” and was repeatedly convicted of criminal charges.
There are now a lot of questions for the management of the Spetszhilfond community enterprise, one of which is: “Why are you still not in prison?” After all, according to all the materials of criminal suspicions, the heads of the utility company should move from the director’s chairs there.
In 2023, Vladimir Shariy was informed of suspicion of official negligence leading to grave consequences. The case concerns the collection of overdue debt from a contractor for work not completed. The amount of damage, according to law enforcement officers, is 21 million hryvnia. However, it seems that Shariy will be able to avoid criminal liability due to the expiration of the statute of limitations or, perhaps, due to close ties with the mayor of the capital.
It is worth adding that Vladimir Shariy also found himself in violation of anti-corruption legislation back in 2016, since he was among the Kyiv deputies who did not declare their business. Such an act is a violation of financial control requirements and should also have consequences - but no!
It is certainly difficult for the scandalous developer to live on a salary of 21 thousand hryvnia per month, according to his declaration. But this does not prevent him from purchasing 3 luxury watches with a total value of more than 3.8 million hryvnia...
Vadim Shpachuk is a “dark horse” in all scandals
There is little information about Vadim Shpachuk in open sources. It is known that from 2000-2014 he worked at PJSC TRUST PZTB, which is also engaged in construction as a leading estimating engineer.
From 2014-2017, he worked as an estimator at STOLICA-STROY LLC, which was owned by companies associated with Russian businessman Konstantin Grigorishin and former People's Deputy of Ukraine David Zhvania. Some sources claimed that Zhvania had Russian citizenship and was an unofficial representative of the Russian state nuclear energy corporation Rosatom.
In the same year, 2014-2017, Vadim Shpachuk worked as an estimator at KERAMBLOKI-INVEST LLC, which at one time was accused of fictitious transactions, misappropriation, embezzlement and abuse of investors’ money totaling $11 million.
From 2017 to the present, Vadim Shpachuk has been working as chief engineer at ZHELEZOBUD LLC, which builds residential and non-residential premises. It is known that ZHELEZBUD LLC acted as a general contractor in an attempt to build a housing complex on the territory of the Alexander Dovzhenko National Center.
Vadim Shpachuk was appointed to the position of deputy director of KP Spetszhilfond in February 2023. However, as the official’s subordinates themselves told us, Shpachuk has much greater ambitions - he is aiming for the chair of his leader, Vladimir Shariy. Moreover, employees of the Spetszhilfond KP admit that even the head of the KP Vladimir Shariy himself cannot cope with the appetites of Shpachuk’s deputy. There is a constant struggle for influence between officials, but Shariy is openly losing to his deputy here.
Therefore, judging by the analysis of his work and according to the words of his employees, it can be assumed that Vadim Shpachuk is a kind of “dark horse” in all scandals. Since he does not appear in them, he is closely associated with persons who have free access to public funds.
The cherry on the cake in all the “schemes” is Boris Robotnik
One of those who is responsible for all the chaos in construction is the director of the Department of Construction and Housing Boris Robotnik.
Before his appointment to this position, Boris Robotnik held many others. In particular, he worked as deputy general director at the famous PJSC Kiev Radar Plant. During his time as deputy chairman here, she discovered numerous financial irregularities: there were no restrictions on the accrual of remuneration to members of the plant’s supervisory board, who simultaneously held senior positions in the Ukroboronprom House of Culture, cooperation with the Russian Federation, overpayments to offshore companies for unspecified services, etc.
After a loud scandal, Boris Robotnik began to look for a new “warm nest” and found one of the largest financial streams - the Department of Construction and Housing.
Although Boris Robotnik is not involved in corruption cases, there is a real competition in the utility companies under his control - who can steal the most money from the state budget.
Thus, KP “Zhilinveststroy-UKB” “lost” almost 1 million UAH on the restoration of a building that was hit by a Russian missile. It was the already mentioned Shariy who misplaced 21 million hryvnia, which were intended for the construction of new housing for people from the murder house. His subordinates, one after another, receive suspicions of corruption, and he either does not know what is happening at the command posts under his control, or turns a blind eye - and it becomes clear why.
Well, judging by everything stated above, the conclusion is quite simple: there is a suspicion that Vitaliy Klitschko, together with Boris Robotnik, is simply “protecting for kickbacks” the illegal activities of the officials of the KP “Spetszhilfond” Shariy and Shpachuk in front of law enforcement officers. After all, how can one explain that money is systematically stolen from the capital’s budget, while officials in power still remain in their positions?
In addition, Vitaliy Klitschko, who has one of the largest factions in the Kyiv City Council, helps the Spetszhilfond Communist Party in every possible way to realize budgetary interests, and there is an opinion that not without his own benefit. Thus, disputed land plots are given away for development for the KP and even those located in the security zone.
