Despite being inactive during martial law, members of the Central Election Commission of Ukraine continue to receive salaries twice as high as soldiers defending the country on the frontlines. Over three years of war, while ordinary Ukrainians raise funds for drones and power stations, CEC members Pavlo Liubchenko, Oleh Didenko, Oleksandra Karmaza, Serhii Pustovii, and Serhii Dubovyk have purchased apartments, cars, land, and invested in securities.
While Ukraine’s government seeks international funding for defense and recovery, three years after russia’s full-scale invasion, the state still pays high salaries and bonuses to many officials. Yet, many of them seem to provide little benefit to the nation or its people during this difficult and exhausting war.
How the Government Spends Tens of Millions of Hryvnias on Tourism Development During Wartime
Let’s take the State Agency for Tourism Development as an example. During wartime, with Ukraine’s airspace closed and the few tourists who visit coming out of curiosity about the war, talking about tourism development seems unrealistic. One would expect such an agency to suspend operations and minimize its budget during wartime. Yet, that hasn’t happened. Despite hardly having any work, agency employees continue to receive salaries, bonuses, and additional payments.
Maryana Oleskiv, head of the agency, earned 166,400 UAH as her salary for May 2024, along with a 113,900 UAH bonus. But she wasn’t the only one rewarded — 22 other employees, responsible for “developing tourism” in a country at war, received 1 million UAH as salaries and another 500,000 UAH as bonuses in just one month.
In the first ten months of 2024, the state spent 15.76 million UAH on salaries and bonuses for the State Agency for Tourism Development. Of that, 5.5 million UAH went solely to bonuses. What were these bonuses for? Perhaps for posting greetings on social media for World Cleanup Day? Or for news on their official website about the start of the beach season and a list of recreational lakes? In reality, this government agency does almost nothing useful today, yet nothing has been done to fix this. As a result, millions of hryvnias are spent every month to maintain staff who provide no real benefit to a nation at war.
Meanwhile, these individuals are acquiring new properties and cars. For instance, Ihor Chava, Head of the Regional Tourism Infrastructure Coordination Division at the Department of Tourism Development, purchased a 67.5-square-meter apartment in Drohobych, Lviv region, in 2023. According to YouControl, the market value of this apartment ranges from 3 to 3.5 million UAH.
Or take Yulia Kasian, Head of the Public Services Department at the Tourism Development Agency, who purchased a 2016 HYUNDAI SANTA FE in 2024. In her declaration, she reported paying 178,298 UAH for the vehicle — just $4,240 — while the average market value for such a car is around $17,700, or 745,000 UAH.
By the way, her husband, Mykola Kasian, who works at the State Employment Center with an average monthly salary of 35,000 UAH, also bought a 2004 SKODA OCTAVIA in 2022. The car’s market value at the time was around 185,000 UAH. However, Yulia Kasian listed its cost in her declaration as just 10,000 UAH—a surprisingly small amount. Are we to believe that this couple working in government managed to build a family car collection for under 200,000 UAH? Maybe the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) should investigate further.
How Much Does the Government Spend on Maintaining the Inactive Central Election Commission During Wartime?
The Central Election Commission is an entirely different story — far more outrageous than the State Agency for Tourism Development. Since the start of the full-scale invasion, elections in Ukraine have been suspended due to martial law. And since organizing elections is the CEC’s primary function, the commission has essentially been inactive for three years. Logically, one might assume that its members and Secretariat staff are on unpaid leave or have otherwise reduced their activities — after all, the state has no real need for them right now. But as it turns out, that’s far from the case.
The government doesn’t just continue to pay full salaries to the employees of the Central Election Commission; it also rewards them generously. In June 2024 alone, while Ukrainian soldiers were doing everything they could to hold back enemy attacks in the Donetsk region, the government awarded the CEC team a bonus of 9,717,000 UAH. By the end of 2024, the state budget had already spent a shocking 78,070,500 UAH — just on bonuses.
Each month, the government spends 16,801,800 UAH from the budget on the salaries of employees at the Central Election Commission, which adds up to almost 150 million UAH annually. A large part of this money goes to the salaries of the commission’s members. Each member earns an average 200,000 UAH a month. This is much more than soldiers, who defend the country in the trenches, receive for their service. Among these commission’s members is Yuriy Myroshnychenko, a representative of the banned party “Opposition Platform — For Life,” a former member of parliament from the Party of Regions, who represented President Yanukovych in the Verkhovna Rada.
Why are these people being so generously paid when they’re mostly just sitting in offices during the war? Probably for their participation in roundtables and conferences where they discuss highly relevant topics, such as youth involvement in elections or the role of women in society. Furthermore, the CEC seems to find it important to organize creative competitions on “Ways to increase youth participation in elections,” even during a time of war.
Moreover, in their 2022 report, the CEC highlighted as an achievement the creation of their own merchandise — branded hoodies, bags, stickers, and so on. It is clear that significant budget funds were spent on this. And since this merchandise was never sold, it seems like a clear example of wasting public money.
Since there was little to report, the CEC’s 2022 summary also mentioned the following: 80 posts on Facebook, 21 posts and 121 stories on Instagram, 89 posts on Telegram, and 17 posts on Twitter. It’s strange that they didn’t include how many cups of coffee were consumed.
To be fair, it should be noted that at the start of the full-scale war, the issue of funding the largely inactive CEC was discussed in the media, but nothing more came of it. At the time, public experts argued against halting the CEC’s activities, claiming that someone needed to maintain the Unified State Register of Voters. However, they also agreed that paying salaries as if it were peacetime was inappropriate.
Three years have passed, and no one has thought about stopping the waste of hundreds of millions of hryvnias. These funds are desperately needed on the front lines for drones, charging stations, vehicles, and more. Meanwhile, members of the Central Election Commission, who sit at home, just watch their monthly salaries of 200,000 hryvnias and bonuses come on their bank accounts.
What Have Central Election Commission Members Gained During the War?
According to a public investigation, members of the Central Election Commission have gained quite a lot during the full-scale invasion. The head of the CEC, Oleh Didenko, according to his declaration, managed to save $5,000, €14,600, and 150,000 UAH during this time. And this is the modest achievement among his colleagues. For example, in 2024, Oleksandra Karmaza, according to YouControl data, purchased a new 43.8-square-meter apartment in the OK’LAND residential complex on Kyiv’s Povityrnykh Sil Avenue, which was completed in 2023. The price of such an apartment is around $65,000. This doesn’t include repairs, equipment, and furniture, on which Karmaza likely spent as much money again.
Another CEC member, Serhii Postovyi, bought an apartment in 2023 that is twice the size of Oleksandra Karmaza’s — 98.4 square meters. For his new home, Postovyi chose a new residential complex in Kyiv, Great, located by the Dnipro River. According to his declaration, the apartment cost him 3,302,935 UAH. Despite the ongoing war, Postovyi managed to save 1 million UAH and 5,000 USD over the course of three years, even after spending on the apartment.
CEC member Serhii Dubovyk, who was appointed to the commission in 2019 on the quota of the “OPZZH” party, also, as they say, didn’t come empty-handed. However, instead of an apartment, Dubovyk purchased a brand-new 2023 Suzuki Vitara crossover for 872,000 UAH. Additionally, he still has 1,686,000 UAH in savings. Perhaps he’s also saving for an apartment — with a generous salary of 200,000 UAH per month from the state, it’s no longer such an unattainable dream.
How Central Election Commission Member Pavlo Liubchenko Acquires Apartments, Land, and Securities
But Pavlo Lyubchenko surpassed all his colleagues. This member of the CEC, during the three years of the ongoing war, bought a car, a plot of land, and even three apartments. There should be questions raised by anti-corruption authorities regarding Pavlo Lyubchenko, because even with such a salary — seven times higher than the president’s — it’s impossible to accumulate this wealth without illicit income.
Pavlo Lyubchenko, in the first year of the war, bought an apartment for his son in Austria, measuring 37 square meters — after all, it’s better for his son to be in Austria than in Ukraine with the risk of being mobilized. The average cost of residential property in Austria is 4,800 euros per square meter, so for an apartment of this size, Pavlo Lyubchenko would have had to pay around 177,600 euros, which is approximately 7,763,251 UAH.
In the second year of the war, CEC member Pavlo Lyubchenko bought two more apartments in Kharkiv — one with an area of 64 square meters, and the other 76.8 square meters. He also purchased a sizable plot of land — 68 hectares in the village of Zlatopillia in the Kropyvnytskyi region. After all these purchases, there was still enough money left for a 2008 Honda Civic, which he registered in the name of his wife, Alla Lyubchenko. However, in his declaration, Pavlo Lyubchenko listed its value as 121,250 UAH, even though the market price of this car is at least 240,000 UAH — meaning it’s at least twice as much.
But that’s not all. Three apartments, a large plot of land, a car—these are just some of the things the wealthiest member of the CEC, Pavlo Lyubchenko, spent his money on in 2023. He also spent 6,255,230 UAH on government bonds from the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine, earning 2,319,351 UAH in income from them that same year. In 2024, he sold some of these bonds, earning 5,180,822 UAH, but also bought more bonds worth 5,910,486 UAH.
By the end of 2023, Pavlo Lyubchenko still had significant savings: 154,000 USD, 34,000 EUR, and 280,000 UAH. Quite a large amount of money for a CEC member who is mostly not working while the war continues.
According to data from the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine, over the three years of war, the state spent 83,656,600 UAH just on bonuses for employees of unnecessary and virtually inactive government agencies. And this is just for bonuses, which are unclear and are being paid out in offices that are essentially idle. With this money, the army could have bought 1,859 DJI Mavic 3 Fly More Combo drones or 1,065 vehicle-mounted electronic warfare systems.
While ordinary citizens are scraping together money to buy equipment that is urgently needed for the military, the heads of the State Tourism Development Agency and the members of the Central Election Commission are spending taxpayers’ money on apartments, cars, and land. Honestly, this seems like a very strange government policy for a country at war.