Alexander Udovichenko basks in luxury, for which he has no legal means.
Regent Hill is one of the most expensive residential complexes in Kyiv. It is located on the Pechersk Hills. Rental housing here reaches 600 thousand hryvnia per month. Purchase - 250 million hryvnia.
On Monday morning, a Toyota Camry with cover plates leaves the underground parking lot of this residential complex and heads... to the State Bureau of Investigation. The gate for the car is raised in advance, and security comes out to greet you. All these honors, according to hromadske, are for the first deputy director of the State Bureau of Investigation and head of the Main Investigation Department, Alexander Udovichenko.
Alexander knows how to surprise. During his 35 years, he managed to serve as a prosecutor in the prosecutor’s office of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (2016), as a deputy prosecutor of Crimea (2017), and upon joining the SBI in 2018, he had already risen to the status of the second person in the body and the rank of colonel of the SBI. The so-called new face. But with old habits.
No property for 5 years in the State Bureau of Investigation
“Quick, fuck, close this fucking business. I will send him (Andrey Bogdan, the then chairman of the OP - ed.) the resolution. Then I will say that Roman (Truba - ed.) decided all this. And Benya (Igor Kolomoisky - ed.) will owe Roman,” this is a fragment of recordings from 2019, better known as the “Trumpet tapes.”
They allegedly show Alexander Udovichenko talking about the case of oil products seized in Nikolaev. Udovichenko, who was then the head of the patronage service of the State Bureau of Investigation, allegedly suggests that the then director of the bureau, Roman Truba, deal with this case, because it is connected with the companies of Igor Kolomoisky.
Truba's films were published anonymously. The authors of the publications claimed that Alexander Udovichenko is Truba’s confidant - “his wallet and contactee, through whom sensitive issues are resolved.”
For more than 5 years of his career in top positions in the State Bureau of Investigation, Alexander Udovichenko not only did not purchase real estate in the Regent Hill residential complex, but did not purchase any housing in the capital at all. According to the official’s latest declaration, he simply rents an apartment in the Goloseevsky district of Kyiv near the Vasilkovskaya metro station. This is an elite residential complex Park Avenue VIP - not the center, but everything is on the level.
Only a plot of land near the village of Roslavichi, Kyiv region, is officially registered in Udovichenko’s name. But not in an expensive cottage town, which has appeared in other anti-corruption investigations, but on a deserted slope, where there is no real estate or infrastructure.
Alexander Udovichenko doesn’t even have a car. Then how did his service Camry end up in the Regent Hill residential complex? To explain this, we had to delve into the vicissitudes of the personal life of Alexander Udovichenko.
The most expensive residential complex in Kyiv
In his last declaration, Udovichenko indicated that he lives with Kristina Udovichenko (nee Kopach). The woman is from Odessa, like Alexander himself. Christina has been involved in cosmetology all her life.
The couple was previously married. 10 years ago their daughter Polina was born. Subsequently, the couple divorced, and now they have gotten back together under the terms of a civil partnership.
In the phones of other users, it is Kristina Udovichenko who is signed as the owner of an elite apartment in Pechersk.
Officially, the woman has no real estate in the capital. Unlike her close relative, Irina Kopach, who, most likely, is the woman’s aunt and, by the way, also a cosmetology specialist, but in Odessa.
In October 2022, in the midst of a full-scale invasion, a cosmetologist from Odessa suddenly buys a three-room apartment of 125 square meters in one of the most elite residential complexes in the capital.
Now such an apartment costs from 37 million UAH. - that is, from 900 thousand dollars. But since this is luxury real estate and its prices are quite stable and tied to the dollar, then in 2022 its price was from 900 thousand dollars.
The interesting things are just beginning, because Irina Kopach was lucky with the price. She managed to buy an apartment here for 1 million 900 thousand hryvnia - this is the amount specified in the real estate purchase and sale agreement. That is, 50,000 dollars at the then exchange rate versus at least 900,000 real market ones.
And in April 2024, Irina Kopach will also receive a separate parking lot in the same residential complex for 100 thousand hryvnia.
Corrupt connections?
The Regent Hill residential complex was built as if for itself, in a rich way. We pretended to be tenants of luxury real estate and will show you what everything looks like from the inside.
The website states that the building is made in the Renaissance style. Marble, gold, oak, black granite and onyx, Persian carpets, antiques from the 18th–19th centuries and real elephant tusk.
The main questions: who and why sold an apartment and a garage in the center of the capital at such a reduced price to an ordinary cosmetologist from Odessa, who, coincidentally, is a relative of the wife of the deputy director of the State Bureau of Investigation?
Construction of the Regent Hill residential complex began in 2013. The then head of the main department of architecture of the Kyiv City State Administration, Sergei Tselovalnik, called this construction illegal, but was afraid to name the developer.
And it’s not surprising, since the residential complex was built by the family of the then people’s deputy from Batkivshchyna, Alexander Dubovoy. Everything is in the best traditions of its predecessors - raiding, mercenaries and no reaction to the discontent of local residents.
In 2014, after the Revolution of Dignity, Dubovoy did not enter the Verkhovna Rada, but this did not prevent him from maintaining both influence and connections. So, for example, in another house of the Dubovs in Pechersk, the rent of which cost more than a million hryvnia a month, under Viktor Yanukovych lived the oligarch Sergei Kurchenko, known for transactions in the fuel market and oil and gas production.
In 2014, journalists linked Dubovoy with thefts in procurement for Ukroboronprom, and three years later, in 2017, Dubovoy left the presidential administration with the then chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Defense Committee Sergei Pashinsky. The men, according to our sources, are connected by many years of friendship and partnership.
After the creation of the State Bureau of Investigation, these cases could and should have been investigated by the bureau staff, but there are no such cases there. The activities of Dubovoy and his partners were of interest only to NABU. In 2020, he was charged with misappropriation of millions from the Odessa City Council as a result of the purchase of the Krayan plant at an inflated price.
And while Alexander Dubovaya was featured in corruption chronicles, his wife Svetlana Dubovaya was dealing with real estate. From the very beginning, she was an investor in the construction of the Regent Hill residential complex.
In 2018, she practically transferred the apartment where SBI Colonel Alexander Udovichenko and his family now live to herself. Or rather, Grand Rent LLC, of which she became the founder. It is from this company that in October 2022, cosmetologist from Odessa Irina Kopach buys an apartment in Regent Hill at a price reduced by 18 times.
All these are dry facts. If we add a little context to them, it turns out that the family of the deputy director of the State Bureau of Investigation bought an apartment at a reduced price from the family of an ex-people's deputy, who is suspected of corruption on a large scale.
From the outside it looks like a “gift” from the Dubovs to Udovichenko. In the best case for Udovichenko, this can be characterized as hiding large taxes by reducing the real value of property.
Still doubt that Alexander Udovichenko is connected with the Dubov family? Let us finally dispel these doubts: before the apartment was bought by his relative, in fact, Alexander Udovichenko himself lived there for free. He acknowledged this fact in his declaration for 2021, indicating that the wife of the ex-People’s Deputy Svetlana Dubovaya personally provided him with an apartment for living.
Mercedes and another apartment instead of icing on the cake
Next in line is another property registered in the name of the same Irina Kopach. In July 2021, when Alexander Udovichenko headed the Main Investigation Department of the State Bureau of Investigation, the woman purchased another apartment in Pechersk. This time in the elite residential complex Greenville. Area - 100 m².
In fact, the Udovichenko family bought housing for 6 million 335 thousand hryvnia directly from the developer. Now apartments of this size in the Greenville residential complex are sold for 9 million hryvnia. Then, in 2021, Alexander Udovichenko’s beloved aunt got a new Mercedes Benz for almost 4 million hryvnia.
Currently, Alexander Udovichenko’s monthly salary at the State Bureau of Investigation is 150 thousand hryvnia per month. And, of course, it would not be enough to buy luxury apartments and rent one on top.
Journalists tried to contact Alexander Udovichenko himself, and his beloved Christina, and her relative Irina, in order to understand how much money the family bought luxury real estate for. However, none of the participants in this story wanted to talk to them.
Therefore, it remains only to recall that the State Bureau of Investigation deals with crimes committed by government officials. So I would like to see the effectiveness of the GBR in this direction.
