More than 600 million UAH in damages to Kyiv’s budget could have been caused during the 10 years of Andriy Hudz’s time in office as head of the Department of Municipal Property of Kyiv. Such amounts have been calculated by investigators in the framework of six criminal proceedings, in which Hudz is a suspect. Meanwhile, the civil servant at the Kyiv City State Administration, with an extremely modest salary, has acquired a large estate outside Kyiv over these years, while his relatives, also lacking the corresponding income, have acquired real estate worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. So, how has the long-time subordinate of Vitaliy Klychko, Andriy Hudz, enriched himself?
The ‘Eternal’ Civil Servant Andriy Hudz
Managing municipal property in the capital is a job that many want, even if the salary is just one hryvnia per month. The chance to earn much more is far more attractive than the salary itself. That’s exactly what happened with Andriy Hudz, who took the position of Head of the Department of Municipal Property of Kyiv on November 5, 2014, and has been holding it for 10 years without any plans to leave. With a salary of 12,000 UAH per month in 2015 and 68,000 UAH in 2023, Andriy Hudz’s lifestyle over these 10 years is as if he were a successful businessman.
But let’s start from the beginning. First, it’s important to note that Andriy Hudz spent his entire career as a civil servant, never engaging in business. In other words, he worked on a government salary, meaning his official earnings were limited. He took the civil service oath back in 1996, right after graduating from the Kyiv International University of Civil Aviation, and began working at the State Property Fund of Ukraine. In 9 years, he rose from a specialist to deputy head of the fund.
Even then, towards the end of his time at the State Property Fund in 2005, Andriy Hudz was able to buy real estate worth $200,000 — a large 121-square-meter apartment in what was then the best new building on the Dnipro River in Obolon, at 12Zh Volodymyra Ivasiuka Street, and a 16.2-square-meter garage next to the building. In his declaration, Hudz stated that the apartment cost him only $77,000, even though its market value at the time was around $180,000 (today — $350,000). As for the garage, Hudz listed a cost of $10,435 in his declaration.
After the State Property Fund, he moved to head the State Property Department at the Ministry of Transport and Communications of Ukraine, and later worked as head of the State Property Department at the Ministry of Coal Industry of Ukraine. In 2007, Hudz was able to buy a 2006 Subaru Forester for $32,000.
Then, in December 2010, Andriy Hudz joined the Department of Municipal Property at the Kyiv City State Administration, which was still called the Privatization, Corporate Rights, and Municipal Property Formation and Distribution Department at the time. He worked in various roles until Vitaliy Klychko, after winning the mayoral elections for the first time, appointed him as the department’s head in November 2014.
How Andriy Hudz and his wife Yulia waste several times more money than their income
So, Andriy Hudz’s entire career has been spent on a civil servant’s salary. According to his declarations from 2015 to today, his joint income with his wife has ranged from $16,000 to $35,000 per year. His savings, according to official records, never exceeded $46,000 in 2018. In other words, officially, the Hudz family is an average middle-class family for Kyiv, with no extraordinary profits.
But, as we know, it’s not about income; it’s about expenses. And this is where it gets interesting. In his 2019 declaration, Andriy Hudz reported purchasing a brand-new Subaru Outback for 1,075,000 UAH ($40,100 at the time), which was registered in his wife Yulia Hudz’s name. As noted before, by 2018, the Hudz family officially had $46,315 in savings. In the 2019 declaration, that amount had dropped to only $25,940, meaning they spent $20,375.
This means that the remaining funds for the car purchase — $19,725 — had to come from their earnings, which in 2019 amounted to $26,240 for both of them. This would leave the head of the Department of Municipal Property of Kyiv with just $6,515 for living expenses over the entire year — about $542 per month. And this is for three people, as the Hudz family has a son, Andriy, born in 2017. Who would believe this? So, based on this example, the conclusion about the existence of unofficial income, which bypasses Andriy Hudz’s declaration, is more than fair.
In the same 2019 year, Andriy Hudz declared a house with an area of 157.4 square meters in the village of Osechyna, near Kyiv, at 22 Luhova Street. According to his declaration, the house was worth just $16,125. This house was built back in 1989 by Andriy Hudz’s father, Anatoliy Hudz, and was inherited by Andriy. One could imagine that this is some ordinary old dacha. If only it were that simple. Judging by photos, Andriy Hudz renovated the house, made repairs, and landscaped the area, which, according to our calculations, could have cost him at least $200,000. So now, it’s a real suburban estate that is definitely worth far more than the $16,000 Andriy Hudz declared.
It’s clear that the money for these investments in the house had to come from somewhere. And it’s obvious that they don’t fit with the official income of the head of municipal property in the capital. However, it’s also clear that it would be suspicious to register all property purchased with unofficial earnings only in his or his wife’s name, so Andriy Hudz’s relatives also turned out to be involved in this, as the saying goes.
How Andriy Hudz’s mother-in-law received two apartments in the elite Odessa residential complex Kosta Fontana
For example, Andriy Hudz’s mother-in-law, 70-year-old pensioner Natalia Borysyuk, a former employee of the Novograd-Volynsk Military Commissariat, became the proud owner of two apartments in June 2016. This happened a year and a half after her son-in-law became head of the Department of Municipal Property of Kyiv. The apartments, №1706 and №1707, are in the elite Kosta Fontana residential complex, located on the first line from the Black Sea in Odesa. The first apartment is 73 square meters, and the second is 61.6 square meters. According to the purchase agreements, the price of these apartments was only $50,300 for the first and $42,400 for the second. That’s less than $100,000 for 134 square meters ($690 per square meter) in an elite residential complex on the first line from the sea… Is that believable?
Okay, let’s imagine that these were just “shells” without renovation, but even then, Hudz’s mother-in-law would have had to spend at least a couple of hundred thousand dollars on repairs, equipment, and furniture for both apartments. The average cost of such apartments in this residential complex is around $270,000, so we can imagine the approximate sums that pensioner Natalia Borysyuk must have had — at least half a million dollars.
And as you can easily understand, it’s possible that the pensioner from Novograd-Volynsk never even visited these two apartments, and the property actually belongs to Andriy Hudz himself. It’s very simple. According to the extract from the Register of Property Rights, the developer of the Kosta Fontana residential complex was the notorious company LLC “Kometa-M” and JSC “KhK Kyivmiskbud.” Coincidence or not, but our hero, Andriy Hudz, has been a member of the Supervisory Board of JSC “KhK Kyivmiskbud” since April 30, 2015, as a representative of the Kyiv City State Administration, which owns 80% of the holding company’s shares. Interesting, right? How and for what reason the mother-in-law of a member of the Supervisory Board of Kyivmiskbud got two nearby apartments in an elite building on the seafront built by this company is still unknown. But it is definitely clear — this could not have happened without using his official position for personal enrichment.
How Andriy Hudz’s former subordinate, earning 14,000 UAH, acquired real estate worth nearly 200,000 dollars
But that’s not all. As part of one of the criminal proceedings, №42021102100000100, opened on June 14, 2021 (which we’ll cover later), investigators arrived at Andriy Hudz’s home on April 22, 2022, to deliver a summons. However, Andriy was not at home, and the investigators were met by a woman who was there with two small children. This woman was not Andriy Hudz’s wife, but Viktoriya Feshchenko, who had been working in the Department of Municipal Property of Kyiv since 2015 — when Hudz hired her as a leading specialist in the documentary support department. In 2020, she left the department and was employed by JSC “KhK Kyivmiskbud,” where, as we know, Andriy Hudz is a member of the Supervisory Board.
What Viktoriya Feshchenko was doing with her children in Hudz’s house and why he employed her is their business. But there is one important point. According to the Property Rights Register, Viktoriya Feshchenko and her mother, Larysa Vasylenko, have acquired real estate worth about $175,000 since 2020. This includes an 80-square-meter apartment in the “Synerhiya-3” residential complex in Irpin, which Viktoriya’s mother bought in June 2020. The average price of such an apartment with renovation is about $94,000. They also own a 38-square-meter apartment in the “Vorzel Park” complex, which Larysa Vasylenko bought in September 2020 for about $40,000. At the same time, she also purchased a 4.4-square-meter non-residential space for $4,000.
Just recently, in April 2024, Viktoriya Feshchenko bought a 35.1-square-meter non-residential space in the “Olymp” residential complex in Irpin, which could have cost her at least $35,000 — that’s how much a similar-sized unit in this complex costs.
Viktoriya Feshchenko’s official salary in Hudz’s department, according to her declarations, was around 14,000 UAH per month. During her five years at the department, she did not declare any savings — which makes sense, considering her salary. Her mother, Larysa Vasylenko, likely didn’t earn any extraordinary income either, as there is no business under her name. One of her personal numbers in the Getcontact app is listed as “Komendant Larysa Borysivna,” which might suggest she worked as a warden in a dormitory, so it’s unlikely she could have saved $175,000 for real estate.
So, the conclusion seems clear — Viktoriya Feshchenko’s presence in Andriy Hudz’s house is most likely not a coincidence. According to our information, Viktoriya Feshchenko divorced her husband in 2019. Her second child, Sіdlets’kyy Illia Andriyovych, was born on September 1, 2021. The surname Sіdlets’ka is Viktoriya’s maiden name. According to the documents we obtained, Illia Sіdlets’kyy has a father — Sіdlets’kyy Andriy Oleksandrovych, who, however, did not provide any documents confirming his identity at the time of the child’s birth. Therefore, it is likely that this person doesn’t exist at all, and the father was a fictional character created by Viktoriya Feshchenko and Andriy Hudz to cover up the fact that Illia Sіdlets’kyy is an illegitimate son of Andriy Hudz, carrying his patronymic.
So, most likely, Andriy Hudz and Viktoriya Feshchenko are in a very close relationship, and this $175,000 worth of real estate is probably an attempt by Hudz to legalize unofficial income through someone close, but unofficially.
In total, according to our calculations, during his time as Director of the Department of Municipal Property of Kyiv, Andriy Hudz may have legalized over half a million dollars of unofficial income through real estate registered to close associates.
How Andriy Hudz “sells” municipal property to private hands at a significantly reduced price
Where can the Director of the Department of Municipal Property of Kyiv earn unofficial income? From all possible operations with municipal property — renting and privatizing. One can only imagine how many decisions by Kyiv city authorities regarding municipal property were made in the interest of private individuals during Andriy Hudz’s 10 years in office. However, instead of guessing, let’s look at just a few of the many criminal proceedings in which Andriy Hudz has been involved.
In 2021, investigators opened criminal case №42021102100000100 regarding the failure of Andriy Hudz, Director of the Department of Municipal Property of Kyiv, to properly carry out his duties, which caused serious consequences, including a loss to the capital’s budget of 22 million 335 thousand 583 UAH. This money was supposed to come from the rental of the Kyiv cinema building, which was leased to LLC “Cinema Center.”
“Cinema Center” stopped paying rent for the building, and instead of taking legal action to terminate the contract in court due to non-payment, Andriy Hudz, according to the investigation, helped draft and issue an act halting the fulfillment of the rental obligations. In other words, he simply allowed the company not to pay for the rent but continue using the building from December 2019 to July 2021. The case is still ongoing in court.
In March 2023, the police opened another criminal case regarding the embezzlement of property at a cultural heritage site located at 28 Strylets’ka Street in the center of Kyiv. In August 2022, Andriy Hudz issued an order based on which a decision was made to privatize 119 square meters of non-residential space in this building. The winner of the auction was “Stroyavtoservis” LLC, which offered just 600,100 UAH for the purchase of the property.
However, the winner did not pay the specified amount within the designated period, prompting Andriy Hudz to approve a new protocol for the electronic auction results, recognizing another winner — Vadym Valentynovych Lynnyk. He purchased nearly 120 square meters in the very center of the capital for only 300,000 UAH, i.e., at a price of 2,500 UAH per square meter. Investigators saw this as embezzlement and misappropriation of property through abuse of office, under Part 3 of Article 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The investigation into this case is still ongoing, but since July 2023, according to the data from the Unified State Register of Court Decisions, there has been no progress.
Another fraudulent deal involving Kyiv’s municipal property was recorded by law enforcement when Andriy Hudz sold a municipal space in a building located at 1 Akademika Hlushkova Avenue, Lit. 65, without a tender. It all started in 2018 when the Department of Municipal Property leased the space to the charitable organization “Historical Heritage Preservation Fund.” Two years later, the fund came to the department with letters stating that it had made capital improvements to the premises and therefore requested the property be sold to them through a simplified process, bypassing auctions and tenders. Andriy Hudz kindly agreed, resulting in the space being sold to the fund. Moreover, he also compensated the fund from Kyiv’s budget for the alleged improvements, which, as investigators later discovered, had never actually been made. As a result, the budget lost 334,000 UAH, and after privatizing the space, the fund almost immediately resold it to “Parkpoint” LLC.
In January 2024, the court approved a search at Andriy Hudz’s home as part of an investigation into the embezzlement of funds from PJSC “Kyivvodokanal,” where Hudz is also a member of the Supervisory Board. The investigation was launched in December 2023, during which investigators found that “Kyivvodokanal” had transferred nearly 180 million UAH through companies supplying reagents — including LLC “Stonesend,” LLC “Poliksen,” LLC “NVP Neosyntez,” LLC “Capital-Rost,” LLC “Ukhimstandart,” and others.
How Andriy Hudz gave away 13 tennis courts to Ihor Kononenko’s company for almost nothing
However, the most notable case regarding Andriy Hudz’s activities was recently opened — in April 2024. The Kyiv community owned 13 tennis courts at 63 Povitroflotskyi Avenue, where children from various sports schools trained for free. But on July 28, 2016, the Kyiv City Council, with decision №892/892, approved the lease of three non-residential buildings, along with these tennis courts, covering 7,354.1 square meters, to LLC “Tennis Group ‘Smesh'” for three years, under the condition of “placing a physical education and sports facility.” As a result, the company received this municipal property without a competition, as the only applicant.
Interestingly, from November 2020 to November 2024, the ultimate beneficiaries of LLC “Tennis Group ‘Smesh'” were Hanna Kovalenko and Ihor Kononenko, a member of the VIII convocation of the Ukrainian parliament from the “BPP ‘Solidarity'” party and a close ally of Ukraine’s fifth president, Petro Poroshenko.
In 2017, the company decided to privatize the tennis courts and do so at a much lower price. To achieve this, “Smesh” entered into an agreement with LLC “Misto Valuation Company” to assess the buildings and courts, which valued the property at 22.04 million UAH. However, there is one catch — the valuation by “Misto” listed only 9 tennis courts, not 13. In February 2020, the Kyiv City Council approved a list of properties to be privatized, which included the tennis courts at Povitroflotskyi Avenue.
On June 26, 2020, Andriy Hudz, without conducting an auction on the Prozorro.Sale platform, signed a sales contract with LLC “Tennis Group ‘Smesh'” for the courts, and the price was not the originally estimated 22 million UAH, but almost half that — just 13.5 million UAH. The pre-trial investigation revealed that the actual market value of this privatized property, which covers more than 10,000 square meters, was 75,408,427 UAH as of March 30, 2020. This means that through his actions, Andriy Hudz caused the Kyiv budget a loss of over 60 million UAH, all in the interest of Ihor Kononenko’s business.
Currently, investigators have announced suspicions in this case against five individuals — namely, Andriy Hudz, his deputy Yuriy Plotnikov, the director of LLC “Tennis Group ‘Smesh’,” and the companies that conducted the fake valuation of municipal property.
Over his 10 years as Director of the Department of Municipal Property of Kyiv, Andriy Hudz has become a subject of six criminal cases related to crimes that caused budget losses of over 600 million UAH. These are just the cases where law enforcement has managed to gather evidence. We are confident that a thorough analysis of all the decisions Hudz has made regarding the capital’s municipal property will reveal many more interesting stories.
In the framework of criminal cases №42023102090000175 and №42021102100000100, the investigation even tried to remove Andriy Hudz from his position, but the courts ruled in his favor. It’s clear that Kyiv’s mayor, Vitaliy Klychko, is also protecting him, as it seems that he is satisfied with what is happening with the capital’s municipal property and how his subordinate Andriy Hudz is successfully profiting from it by buying apartments for his relatives and close associates.