Corruption and mismanagement in the State Bureau of Investigation undermine Western trust in Ukrainian authorities

After the Revolution of Dignity, Ukraine began the process of European integration, an important part of which is the creation of independent institutions that would ensure public control and the fight against corruption.

One of the law enforcement agencies created with the support of Ukraine’s European partners in 2016 was the State Bureau of Investigation of Ukraine, which has jurisdiction over top officials, judges, law enforcement officers, and those who committed war crimes.

In 2024 the State Bureau of Investigation transferred over UAH 11.5 billion unjustified assets to ARMA (the National Agency of Ukraine for the Detection, Search and Management of Assets derived from corruption and other crimes).

The confiscated assets include online casino money, corporate rights of construction companies, and other assets. However, the State Bureau of Investigation ignores its own employees who have received dubious multimillion-dollar assets; and these assets could also be confiscated in favor of the state.

Can the indicators be considered successful despite the impressive numbers?

At the end of last year, journalists published an investigation about Oleksandr Hovorushchak, an official of the State Bureau of Investigation, whose family purchased houses, apartments and cars worth 35 million hryvnias. Among them, for example, was a house in the suburbs of Kyiv, which was valued at three times less than the market value. Investigators found out that the family began to increase their assets immediately after the man has received a position at the State Bureau of Investigation. But a month later, the Head of the State Bureau of Investigation, Oleksiy Sukhachov, said that the inspection had not revealed any violations of anti-corruption legislation.

However, Hovorushchak’s case is not the only one where employees of the State Bureau of Investigation are accused of corruption, which is actually something they are supposed to fight.

The most recent example is the Head of the Bureau’s Main Operational Department – Ihor Heyda. According to journalists, his wife conducted a series of dubious real estate transactions. For example, shortly before the full-scale invasion, the woman bought a 143-square-meter apartment in one of the most elite residential complexes in Kyiv, “Boulevard of Fountains”, for $390,000. At that time, the official’s family did not have that kind of money. Nine months later, Mrs. Heyda sold a house in Kharkiv for $550,000, although her husband’s declaration indicated a market value of $40,000.

And in the summer of 2024, hromadske journalists found out that Oleksandr Udovychenko, the Deputy Head of the Bureau, lives in a luxury apartment worth more than $1 million, but does not indicate this in his declaration. Later the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine initiated criminal proceedings against the official.

Another hero of the journalistic investigations is Oleksandr Anin, a Senior Investigator for particularly important cases at the Bureau’s Main Investigation Department. The media found out that the man lives in a 106-square-metre apartment owned by his relative. The woman also has a 166-square-metre garage. And next to it is another garage registered to Anin’s father, with an area of 1,271 square metres (about 15 three-bedroom apartments).

The Head of the State Bureau of Investigation, Oleksandr Sukhachov, is also accused of corruption. According to “Skhemy”, Oksana Kuchynska, one of the members of the commission that selected the head of the Bureau, turned out to be well acquainted with both Sukhachov and the specialized Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Oleh Tatarov. All three are listed as co-authors of the book “Scientific and Practical Commentary on the Law of Ukraine “On the Judiciary and the Status of Judges” (2019). A year earlier, she published the manual “Procedural Documents of Pre-trial Investigation”, Tatarov and Sukhachov wrote reviews. All three are also members of the editorial board of “The Journal of Criminal Justice”.

Public accusations against the Bureau also worsen the situation. For example, a well-known Ukrainian businessman, Ihor Mazepa, who was detained by law enforcement officers more than a year ago, openly accused the State Bureau of Investigation of pressure. At that time, Mazepa was supported by a large number of well-known businessmen, many of whom asked a fair question: why is the Bureau investigating the 2013 case during a full-scale war; and does it have other tasks? By the way, a year later, the case of the owner of Concorde Capital has not been closed and has not been referred to court.

Another public case is the complaint of judges of the Kirovskyi District Court of Kirovohrad against pressure from the Bureau. Already during the full-scale invasion, criminal proceedings were opened against them on charges of treason, but within seven months only the applicant was interviewed. According to the head of the court, this is “an undisguised form of pressure on the judiciary for the purpose of intimidation” to make “the right decision for the prosecutor’s office at the right time”.

Yuriy Butusov, a reputable Ukrainian journalist and editor-in-chief of Censor.net, concluded that the Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Oleh Tatarov, has built a vertical control over most law enforcement agencies in Ukraine, including the State Bureau of Investigation.

The State Bureau of Investigation of Ukraine has failed to become a model and independent anti-corruption agency. The Bureau’s employees regularly become the heroes of journalistic investigations, and the Bureau itself is under the direct control of Oleh Tatarov, who is in charge of the law enforcement unit in the Office of the President of Ukraine. And taking into account that the activities of the Bureau are in constant focus of foreign partners, this situation undermines their trust in Ukrainian authorities.

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