In the Kherson region, millions of hryvnias intended for the repair of shelters were embezzled during the war.

The director of a private construction company and a technical supervision engineer have been notified of the suspicions.

According to the investigation, at the end of 2023, the contractor entered into contracts with one of the communities in the Kherson district for the capital repair of a shelter in a support lyceum. In the documents, he deliberately inflated the volumes and costs of work and materials. 

As a result, over 4 million hryvnias were transferred from the budget, of which more than half a million were obtained illegally.

The technical supervision engineer, who was supposed to ensure real control over the work, effectively distanced himself from the process. He approved acts with inaccurate information without checks, which led to additional budget losses of nearly 490 thousand hryvnias.

In 2024, the director of the same company repeated the scheme during the reconstruction of a shelter in one of the medical institutions in Kherson – a facility that is supposed to serve as a shelter during shelling and a place for providing medical assistance. The inflated volumes of work in the reporting documentation allowed for the unjustified receipt of over 5 million hryvnias from the budget.

The total amount of losses in the two mentioned proceedings exceeds 5.5 million hryvnias. 

The director of the contracting company is charged with embezzlement of budget funds in especially large amounts and official forgery (part 4, 5 of Article 191, part 1 of Article 366 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine), while the technical supervision engineer is charged with official negligence (part 2 of Article 367 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).

The pre-trial investigation in the criminal proceedings is being conducted by investigators of the Kherson region police with operational support from the relevant units of the National Police and the Security Service of Ukraine.

Note: according to Article 62 of the Constitution of Ukraine, a person is presumed innocent of committing a crime and cannot be subjected to criminal punishment until their guilt is proven in a lawful manner and established by a guilty verdict of the court.