Beware of officials who have held their positions for decades — over time, they have mastered the art of enriching themselves while avoiding responsibility. These words perfectly describe the activities of Oleh Shmuliar, the First Deputy Director of the Municipal Property Department of Kyiv, after analyzing his assets, his family’s lifestyle, and the history of criminal cases involving corruption within the department under his leadership.
Recently, BlackBox OSINT investigated how Andrii Hudz, the Director of the Municipal Property Department, has been practically giving away Kyiv’s public property for almost nothing while his inner circle accumulates new real estate. But for almost ten years, it’s not just Hudz who has stayed in his position — his first deputy, Oleh Shmuliar, has also kept his job. A career civil servant with 30 years of experience, he spent his entire life on a government salary, managing state and municipal property, yet he lives as if he were the owner of a highly successful business. Then again, if one treats a public office as a business, it’s not surprising at all.
Who is Oleh Shmuliar?
Oleh Shmuliar, 59, is originally from the Chernihiv region and graduated from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv with a degree in Law. In 1992, after serving in the Soviet army in Afghanistan and working as an investigator for the prosecutor’s office in Kyiv’s then Zaliznychnyi District, Shmuliar joined the Kyiv City Administration’s Municipal Property Fund—first as a specialist, later becoming the head of the legal department.
Like his current boss, Andrii Hudz, Shmuliar spent 12 years working at the State Property Fund of Ukraine from 1998 to 2010, where he held several positions: Deputy Head of the Legal Support Department, Deputy Director of the Legal Department, Director of the Legal Department, and eventually Deputy Head of the State Property Fund.
Shmuliar and Hudz later moved to the Kyiv City Administration’s Municipal Property Management Office — Hudz in 2010 and Shmuliar in 2011. When Hudz was appointed as the Director of the Municipal Property Department in 2014, he promoted his longtime colleague from the State Property Fund, Oleh Shmuliar, to First Deputy Director on April 4, 2016.
Since then, both of them have been leasing and selling Kyiv’s municipal assets together, using their influence for personal enrichment.
How Much Damage Have Andrii Hudz and Oleh Shmuliar Caused to Kyiv’s Budget?
The effectiveness of their work can be evaluated through the financial reports of the Municipal Property Department of Kyiv. In 2021, the department recorded its worst results in a decade for budget revenue from municipal property rentals: instead of the planned 89.9 million UAH, only 52.28 million UAH was collected.
In 2022, the city’s rental income fell even more, reaching just 23.38 million UAH — Hudz and Shmuliar blamed it on the war, saying they reduced rent for businesses. However, even in 2023, rental revenues were still half of what was expected: instead of the projected 68.2 million UAH, the city received only 33.93 million UAH in municipal property rent payments.
Over three years, a large city with plenty of real estate earned just 109 million UAH from rentals. This is no surprise, as many properties are handed over to “insiders” for almost nothing. For example, the private funeral services company “Petro Velykyi,” owned by Alla Landar, rents space inside hospitals in the very heart of the capital for a ridiculous 59 UAH per square meter — ten times lower than the market rate.
Does anyone really think they’re doing this out of goodwill? Unlikely.
Under the leadership of Hudz and Shmuliar, Kyiv has been losing tens and even hundreds of millions of hryvnias in much-needed budget revenue. At the same time, according to a rough estimate based on materials from open criminal cases, their actions have caused 600 million UAH in damages to the city. For instance, Kyiv lost 22 million UAH in rent revenue from the Kyiv cinema, 500,000 UAH from a rental property on Ioanna Pavla II Street, and over 1 million UAH from leasing the Rybalko Market complex. And the list goes on.
Oleh Shmuliar is involved in a criminal case concerning letting a tenant skip rent at 26B Ivana Franka Street. He is also implicated in case No. 62019100000000944, initiated by the State Bureau of Investigations (SBI) on July 23, 2019, regarding the illegal acquisition of a municipal building in central Kyiv — the so-called “House of the Author”, a historic property over 100 years old, located on Bohdana Khmelnytskoho Street. The Kyiv City Administration (KCSA) sold this building at auction for 44.5 million UAH to the Vit-Plus company, owned by Vladimir Klychko, the brother of Kyiv’s mayor. The sale conveniently took place immediately after the KCSA succeeded in court in lifting a freeze order on the building, ensuring the transaction went through before the SBI could impose a new one.
Shmuliar personally signed the sale agreement on September 6, 2017, through which the Municipal Property Department of Kyiv sold a 176.8 square meter non-residential building at 68/18 Honore de Balzac Street to Garant Prof Invest LLC. At the time of purchase, only 0.23 hectares of land were officially inventoried under the building, but this data was illegally erased from the State Land Cadastre. Afterward, a new plot of land was created, covering 1.2337 hectares, with a new cadastral number and a new zoning designation for the construction and maintenance of a multi-apartment residential building with commercial and retail infrastructure. This scheme facilitated the illegal allocation of 1.23 hectares for high-rise construction in Kyiv’s Desnianskyi district to a company owned by the sister of Kyiv City Council member Denys Moskal, a longtime business partner of Kyiv real estate developer Vlada Molchanova.
And this is just a glimpse into Oleh Shmuliar’s corrupt dealings at the Municipal Property Department of Kyiv. Despite multiple criminal cases, allegations, and blatant violations in favor of private businesses, and a complete lack of meaningful results, Shmuliar — after 30 years of handling state and municipal property — still holds his position in the Kyiv City Administration. He continues to lead the theft of Kyiv’s land and real estate without any obstacles.
How Oleh Shmuliar Profited Over 30 Years as an Ordinary Bureaucrat?
How do the heads of the Municipal Property Department of Kyiv make money? That’s clear. Now, let’s take a look at what Oleh Shmuliar has gained over 30 years of government service, living his entire life on a government salary. Which, by the way, remains quite modest even today. According to the department’s staffing schedule for 2024, Oleh Shmuliar’s official salary as the first deputy director of the department is 24,550 UAH. His 2023 declaration states that his total salary from the department amounted to 719,338 UAH for the year, which comes to nearly 60,000 UAH per month.
Shmuliar’s wife, 48-year-old Kateryna Nikolaieva, is also a government employee, working at the Kyiv City Administration’s municipal enterprise Kyivteploenergo, where she earned just 16,226 UAH in salary for all of 2023. Like her husband, Nikolaieva previously worked at the State Property Fund of Ukraine, later moving to the Kyiv City Employment Center, where she lost her job in 2022. She then registered there as unemployed and began receiving unemployment benefits.
On paper, Oleh Shmuliar’s family appears to be an ordinary household of state employees with modest public-sector incomes — barely enough to get by in the capital. And yet, somehow, starting in 2015, when Shmuliar first filed his electronic asset declaration stating he had no savings at all, their cash reserves began increasing by 5,000 to 10,000 USD annually, reaching 58,000 USD by 2022.
Over 30 years of government service, Oleh Shmuliar and his wife have acquired four apartments, six plots of land, a residential house, and a garage. Another residential house of unknown size in the village of Bucha, near Kyiv, is listed in his declaration as an unfinished construction project. Not bad for people who have never owned a business and have spent their entire lives on modest government salaries, right?
For example, in 2022, Kateryna Nikolaieva bought a garage in Kyiv for 300,000 UAH, even though she earned only 37,000 UAH that year from unemployment benefits.
In 2021, Oleh Shmuliar also bought several plots of land in the Cherkasy and Odesa regions, but he did not declare their value. According to BlackBox OSINT, a 1.19-hectare plot in the village of Yavorivka, Cherkasy region, likely cost him about 3,500 USD, while a 200-square-meter plot in the coastal village of Lyman, Odesa region, was around 5,000 USD.
An interesting bit of math: by the end of 2021, the Shmuliar family had $26,253 in savings. Their combined income for 2022 was $31,785. Yet, by the end of 2022, Shmuliar declared total savings of $58,067, which is exactly the sum of their 2021 assets plus their entire 2022 income. So, did they live an entire year on just $29? Sounds ridiculous. But it clearly points to undeclared income, as Shmuliar’s declaration for that year does not mention any property sales or other legal transactions.
How Oleh Shmuliar’s Driver, Serhii Zghurovets, Bought a $70,000 Apartment in Kyiv on a Low Salary?
The story of Oleh Shmuliar’s personal driver, 58-year-old Serhii Zghurovets, is also quite interesting. He is officially employed at the municipal enterprise “Automobile Transport Company of the Executive Body of the Kyiv City Administration”, while his wife, Ruslana Zghurovets, works as Deputy Head of the Document Management and Control Department at the Finance Department of the Kyiv City Administration.
According to the State Register of Property Rights, the Zghurovets family—a civil servant and a driver—purchased a 46-square-meter apartment in Kyiv at 27 Krakivska Street. In their declarations, they listed the purchase price as 1,188,348 UAH ($46,450 USD). However, the market value of a similar apartment in that building ranges from $68,000 USD (unfinished) to $110,000 USD (renovated).
Since 2016, Ruslana Zghurovets’ annual income has averaged around $10,250 USD, while her husband, Serhii Zghurovets—Oleh Shmuliar’s driver—earned only $4,370 USD per year. As of 2022, their total savings amounted to just 50,000 UAH ($1,370 USD). Their daughter is a student, and Ruslana’s mother is a pensioner.
By 2022, the family’s combined income and savings totaled approximately $15,990 USD. A simple calculation makes it clear that they could not have afforded the $46,450 USD apartment they declared—let alone one with a real market price of $68,000 to $110,000 USD.
How Tetiana Hrytsai, Chief Accountant of Kyiv’s Municipal Property Department, Built a Private Cottage Community with Her Family in Stari Petrivtsi?
Another interesting case involves Oleh Shmuliar’s colleague, 44-year-old Tetiana Hrytsai, the chief accountant of the Municipal Property Department of Kyiv. Her husband, Dmytro Hrytsai, is also far from a businessman — he works as a driver at the Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Ukraine. Yet, despite their modest public-sector incomes, their lifestyle suggests otherwise.
Another interesting case involves Oleh Shmuliar’s colleague, 44-year-old Tetiana Hrytsai, the chief accountant of the Municipal Property Department of Kyiv. Her husband, Dmytro Hrytsai, is also far from a businessman — he works as a driver at the Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Ukraine. Yet, despite their modest public-sector incomes, their lifestyle tells a different story.
According to the State Register of Property Rights, in 2013, the Hrytsai family managed to secure five nearby plots of land totaling half a hectare in a forested area of Stari Petrivtsi, a village near Kyiv, all located on Blahovishchenska Street. One 0.1-hectare plot was given to Tetiana Hrytsai, another to her husband Dmytro Hrytsai, a third to Tetiana’s mother, Liudmyla Lukianchuk, and the remaining two to her sister, Svitlana Stepanchuk.
In 2019, Tetiana Hrytsai — who, like her bosses, Andrii Hudz and Oleh Shmuliar, has held her position for years — built a 154.9-square-meter house on her land. However, just like them, she has never disclosed how much she spent on construction. Based on our estimates, a house of this size in Stari Petrivtsi would cost at least $170,000 USD, which is the average price for a relatively new house in the area.
Her declarations suggest that construction began in 2017, meaning the house was built in just two years. During 2017 and 2018, the Hrytsai family’s total declared income averaged $19,720 USD per year, and at the time, Tetiana Hrytsai had no declared savings. In other words, their total income over two years was just under $40,000 USD, yet they somehow managed to afford a $170,000 USD house. It seems the chief accountant of the Municipal Property Department of Kyiv has her own way of doing math. No wonder she chose not to reveal the house’s cost in her declarations.
Her sister, Svitlana Stepanchuk, isn’t far behind. According to Google satellite images, a house was also built on her land, appearing to be more than twice the size of Tetiana Hrytsai’s.
Svitlana’s husband, 45-year-old Andrii Stepanchuk, is also a government employee, working as a senior officer at the Strategic Investigations Department of the National Police of Ukraine. Notably, nowhere in his asset declarations has he mentioned his wife’s house — or, more likely, their shared estate, which appears to be at least 400 square meters.
The market price for a similar 360-square-meter house in Stari Petrivtsi is around $350,000 USD. While Tetiana Hrytsai at least tried to hide the cost of her home, her relatives, Svitlana and Andrii Stepanchuk, went even further by not declaring their estate at all — most likely registering it under a relative’s name. That makes sense — otherwise, Officer Stepanchuk would have to answer the obvious question: Where did the money come from?
How Oleh Shmuliar’s Daughter, Mariia Shmuliar, Runs Tender Fraud in Municipal Enterprises?
So, we see an entire clan of officials and their families firmly established in the Municipal Property Department of Kyiv, accumulating land and real estate while officially earning modest government salaries. Another member of this group is 34-year-old Mariia Shmuliar, the daughter of Oleh Shmuliar from his first marriage.
According to open sources, Mariia Shmuliar worked at the municipal enterprise “KyivkinoFilm” from at least 2016 until late 2019. Since spring 2023, this enterprise has been renamed “Kyiv Cultural Cluster” where she handled tenders and purchases. Mariia Shmuliar personally oversaw the tender for capital repairs of the “Krakiv” cinema, first awarding a 74 million UAH contract to Integral Bud-Standard LLC and later, in 2019, approving another 123 million UAH contract for similar work, which was awarded to Zh.O.K. LLC.
As a result, on November 12, 2021, the Podil District Department of the National Police of Kyiv launched criminal proceedings No. 42021102070000265 under Part 3 of Article 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine — embezzlement, misappropriation of funds, or abuse of power.
Investigators found that executives of four companies, all owned by the same individual, repeatedly won public tenders for contracts awarded by the Kyiv Cultural Cluster. According to case materials, their tender victories were secured with the help of city officials—in this case, Mariia Shmuliar, who was responsible for procurement. The names of the companies and their owner are redacted in court documents, but BlackBox OSINT has identified Zh.O.K. LLC as one of them.
In total, Kyiv Cultural Cluster transferred 112.6 million UAH to Zh.O.K. LLC for work under the original agreement. But the repairs didn’t stop there — on October 11, the same municipal enterprise signed another contract with Zh.O.K. LLC, allocating an additional 34.9 million UAH for further renovations of the “Krakiv” cinema. A cinema worth its weight in gold.
Notably, Denys Khomych, head of the Kyiv Cultural Cluster municipal enterprise, is not only implicated in the embezzlement case involving the renovation of the “Krakiv” cinema but is also a defendant in another case for letting tenants avoid rent payments for the “Kyiv” cinema building. As mentioned earlier, the director of the Municipal Property Department of Kyiv, Andrii Hudz, and his first deputy, Oleh Shmuliar, are also involved in this case. It’s all the same familiar faces in the same municipal circle — with Oleh Shmuliar on one side of the department and his daughter, Mariia Shmuliar, on the other, overseeing procurement at a municipal enterprise.
Mariia Shmuliar didn’t just work at this one municipal enterprise. In 2020-2021, she was involved in procurement at Kyiv’s “Miskyi Mahazyn” municipal enterprise, which oversees auctions for business permits. In 2020, while Mariia Shmuliar was handling auctions, auditors discovered that only 8 out of 52 approved permits were issued through competitive bidding — meaning at least two participants were involved. According to the audit report, 22 contracts were awarded to a single bidder without competition, a process directly facilitated by Mariia Shmuliar.
Now, Mariia Shmuliar works at the Ministry of Defense’s municipal enterprise “Defense Procurement Agency”, overseeing tenders that, unsurprisingly, have also been linked to scandals.
So what do we have here? A well-established network of municipal officials in the Kyiv Municipal Property Department, holding onto their positions for decades, causing massive financial losses for the city while personally enriching themselves far beyond their declared incomes. If law enforcement can’t stop this, Kyiv Mayor Vitalii Klychko could. But judging by the fact that his own brother’s name has surfaced in at least one case of municipal asset mismanagement, it seems that Andrii Hudz, Oleh Shmuliar, Tetiana Hrytsai, and the rest of their circle are exactly the kind of people the mayor prefers to keep around.