1 May, 21:24
In December 2021, then-Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal stood in front of the cameras and announced it almost with pride: more than ten billion dollars.
That, at that moment, was the amount spent on Velyke Budivnytstvo - the Great Construction. A figure that takes a moment to register, because this is not just the budget of a single program. This is more than the entire annual budget of several European countries. This is 11 percent of Ukraine's entire state budget, settled in a single agency - Ukravtodor, the State Road Agency. In the road segment alone, between 2020 and 2021, Ukraine poured 195.3 billion hryvnias.
Then the war came. And the Great Construction was quietly renamed the Great Recovery.
This may be the most eloquent thing one can say about the project's fate: it did not end in a scandal, it did not end in convictions, it did not end in a parliamentary inquiry. It simply changed its sign. The same contractors, the same patterns of one-to-three-percent discounts, the same tender rituals, the same names in investigative headlines.
So where did the billions go?
How It Began
In the autumn of 2019, when Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk presented the concept to President Zelensky, the idea looked appealing. Fast. Massive. Nationwide. With strict guarantees from contractors - five-year warranty on road surfaces, full-cycle execution. Schools, kindergartens, hospitals, roads, stadiums. Six and a half thousand kilometers of roads in 2020 alone. 142 schools. 117 kindergartens. 212 emergency departments at regional hospitals.
The launch came on March 1, 2020. The president announced an unprecedented 85 billion hryvnias for road construction in a single year. Honcharuk reported work underway on 300 sites simultaneously. The program's coordination council was led by Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Office of the President. The technical curator was Yuriy Holyk - a man without a position, without a financial declaration, without constraints. Just an adviser to the prime minister, then just an "ideologue," then just a guest of the government quarter, whose vehicle, as Bihus.Info documented in 2023, was waved through the security checkpoint without inspection.
The third figure was Oleksandr Kubrakov. In November 2019, he went from being a Servant of the People MP to head of Ukravtodor; in May 2021, he became Minister of Infrastructure; in December 2022, Deputy Prime Minister for Recovery. A career trajectory that, in any normally functioning state, should have been accompanied by at least some rituals of accountability.
Six Firms, One Market
In 2020, Ukravtodor's largest contractors formed the National Association of Road Builders of Ukraine (NADU). Six companies. Avtomagistral-Pivden, Rostdorstroy, Onur Construction International, Maksym Shkil's Avtostrada, Tekhno-Bud-Tsentr, Altcom Road Construction.
In 2020, these six firms received roughly 67 percent of all Ukravtodor contracts. In 2018-2019, three of them absorbed 28.45 billion hryvnias out of 88 billion in annual tenders. The League of Anti-Trust filed a complaint with the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine listing the markers of cartel collusion. Discounts in tenders won by "in-network" companies rarely exceeded 2-5 percent. Where outsiders managed to break in, prices fell instantly by 20-30 percent.
This is not an accusation. This is arithmetic. And the arithmetic is publicly available on Ukraine's state procurement platform.
But here is the curious thing. The authorized capital of Avtomagistral-Pivden - a firm that in 2021 alone secured 18.47 billion hryvnias in tenders - was 40 thousand hryvnias. The cost of an office desk, a chair, and a low-end computer. How a firm of that size executes contracts worth billions is a question that to this day has received no answer from Ukravtodor, the Antimonopoly Committee, or NABU - the National Anti-Corruption Bureau.
Meanwhile, Maksym Shkil's Avtostrada in 2021 moved into first place with 47 billion hryvnias in tenders won. A 114 percent jump from the previous year. In 2024, three contracts for road maintenance in Vinnytsia oblast totaling 10.5 billion hryvnias with a 3 percent discount. In 2024, a contract for the Vynogradar metro line in Kyiv worth 13.79 billion hryvnias - with a one-percent discount.
A one-percent discount is not even bargaining. It is a formality.
This is where the first question arises - to the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine: Was the cartel structure of the road construction market in 2020-2024 ever genuinely investigated? If yes, where are the conclusions? If not, why not?
The COVID Billions
April 2020. Parliament establishes the COVID-19 Response Fund. The country has tens of thousands of sick patients, overwhelmed hospitals, medics without protective gear, a catastrophic shortage of ventilators.
At that very moment, 35 billion hryvnias from the COVID fund are redirected to road construction.
53 percent of the funds. Yes, more than half of the entire COVID fund. This was confirmed by the head of the Accounting Chamber, Valeriy Patskan. Not an investigative journalist. Not an opposition politician. The head of the state audit body.
Ihor Umansky, an adviser to the Office of the President and former Minister of Finance, publicly spoke in 2020 about these funds being absorbed by the cartel. MP Iryna Konstankevych in August of that year called the program "an ordinary PR project that has nothing in common with real state programs."
I deliberately do not repeat these assessments as my own. I am simply recording the fact: officials and MPs - not from the opposition, but from within the executive branch and the parliamentary majority - were giving frank characterizations of the program back in 2020. It is in the transcripts. It is in the public record.
The second question - to the Prosecutor General's Office and the State Bureau of Investigation. Was the legality of redirecting COVID-fund money to roads ever examined, given that medical institutions at that time were not receiving even basic supplies? If a review took place, what was its outcome?
The School That Doesn't Exist
Chabany, Kyiv oblast. Three consecutive tenders worth more than 155.6 million hryvnias. The school still has not been built. One of the figures in the case - the head of the village council, Oleksandr Kyryzliyev - turned up in Moscow during the first days of the full-scale invasion. The money is gone. The school does not exist. The children have no new building to learn in.
Chukalivka, Ivano-Frankivsk oblast. A contract for 45.6 million hryvnias. 33.6 million transferred for unperformed work. In March 2024, the High Anti-Corruption Court refused to extend the investigation deadline. The case effectively collapsed.
Stavrove, Odesa oblast. Twenty-eight construction defects identified at a single site. At one school. Twenty-eight.
And these are only the cases that reached the public eye. Texty.org.ua, Slovo i Dilo, and Radio Liberty documented a systematic practice: facilities being completed with local funds or started under President Poroshenko were being inaugurated as Great Construction projects. Ribbons were cut. Selfies were taken. Promotional clips were filmed.
The questions remain. How many of the 142 announced schools had been completed in full by February 24, 2022? There is no public statistics. How much money has been recovered from unfulfilled contracts? Unknown. How many criminal cases opened since 2020 have led to a guilty verdict?
This is the third question. To the Prosecutor General. How many guilty verdicts have been delivered in cases related to the Great Construction and the Great Recovery programs? What sums have been recovered?
The Airport That Also Doesn't Exist
Dnipro. February 2020 - a contract is signed with Altis-Construction for 3.95 billion hryvnias. May - the Antimonopoly Committee blocks the deal: the Ministry of Infrastructure failed to disclose its intention to grant the airport 1.5 billion hryvnias in state aid. July - the contract is terminated. October - Onur wins the new tender at 5.64 billion. The only other bidder was Rostdorstroy at 5.65 billion. A ten-million-hryvnia gap between two competitors - 0.2 percent. Some competition.
The Dnipro airport has not become operational. The site has been frozen since February 2022. Nashi Hroshi linked the entire saga to an attempt to seal the airfield off for Ihor Kolomoyskyi's interests.
The pre-war reconstructed airports of Kherson and Kryvyi Rih are similarly nonfunctional.
The fourth question, addressed to the Cabinet of Ministers and the current leadership of the State Agency for Recovery: What is the status of contracts on regional airport projects? Are funds being recovered for unfulfilled work? Is an inventory being conducted?
The Lavish Lives of Curators
From July 2020, Kyrylo Tymoshenko has been renting a two-story mansion in the Zoloti Vorota gated community in Kozyn for 230,000 hryvnias per month. On a civil servant's salary, let me remind you.
On January 2, 2021, he bought his wife an estate in Alpiyka outside Kyiv for an estimated 10 million hryvnias. The estate was reported by Glavcom, and the purchase itself was not concealed.
Summer 2019 - a BMW X5 for 2.64 million hryvnias.
October 2022 - Bihus.Info filmed Tymoshenko driving a Chevrolet Tahoe from a humanitarian shipment by General Motors. The shipment of 50 vehicles had been donated by the company for civilian evacuation from combat zones. After the scandal, the vehicle was "transferred to one of the frontline regions."
December 2022 - Ukrainska Pravda reported a Porsche Taycan worth approximately 100,000 dollars, which Tymoshenko was driving and which, according to the National Agency on Corruption Prevention's findings, he received free of charge as a "rental".
January 2023 - resignation "by personal request".
July 2023 - the Anti-Corruption Agency filed an administrative protocol. Established findings: he had signed a letter to the State Border Service requesting permission for a subordinate to leave the country "supposedly for an official trip" - in reality, to obtain a visa for Tymoshenko himself. Three free stays at a hotel resort.
October 2023 - Pechersk District Court closed the proceedings. No corpus delicti was established. Tymoshenko then announced on Instagram a "loud return."
I will pose only one question, and not an accusatory one. No criminal charges have ever been filed against Kyrylo Tymoshenko in connection with his work in the Office of the President during his coordination of the Great Construction program. Why?
The MP Who Fled
Andriy Odarchenko. A Servant of the People MP. A member of the parliamentary anti-corruption committee. Anti-corruption.
November 21, 2023 - he is named a suspect. He had offered Mustafa Nayyem a Bitcoin bribe equivalent to 50,000 dollars for releasing funds for the renovation of buildings of the Biotechnology University in Kharkiv, where he was rector under contract. Part of the bribe - 0.39 BTC, or roughly 10,000 dollars - was actually transferred.
On November 22, the High Anti-Corruption Court set bail at 15 million hryvnias. Odarchenko paid. He walked out.
September 18, 2024 - the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office announced that Odarchenko had fled Ukraine.
October 10, 2025 - a verdict in absentia. Eight years with confiscation of property.
What happened between November 22, 2023, and September 18, 2024? How does a member of the parliamentary anti-corruption committee, against whom a case exists with a Bitcoin bribe actually transferred, cross the border in wartime? Who saw it? Who signed off on it? Who waved him through?
The fifth question - to the State Border Service. To the Security Service of Ukraine. To the Prosecutor General. Who will bear personal responsibility for Odarchenko's departure?
The Dnipropetrovsk Plot
In the autumn of 2022, Skhemy and Ukrainska Pravda published a story after which the phrase "fitness trainer" acquired a distinctly political meaning in Ukrainian journalism.
Since the start of the full-scale invasion, the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Military Administration had spent 2.3 billion hryvnias on roads. More than all of the most heavily affected regions combined. Of that sum, 1.5 billion was absorbed by Budinvest Engineering LLC. The 49 percent co-owner of the company turned out to be 34-year-old fitness trainer Yana Khlanta - the partner of the head of the regional administration, Valentyn Reznichenko.
In 2021, Budinvest Engineering won tenders worth nearly 15 billion hryvnias. More than the Turkish Onur.
December 2022 - NABU conducts searches at Reznichenko's properties. On the same day, searches at Yuriy Holyk's residence in the Konyk gated community outside Kyiv.
May 2023 - detectives seize two phones from Holyk. They contain correspondence with Denys Ostrovsky, owner of SK Stroyinvest, who since 2016 had received approximately 4.5 billion hryvnias in state contracts.
December 2025 - NABU completes its investigation against Reznichenko. Damages to the budget: 392 million hryvnias. The suspicion concerns document falsification: routine and capital repairs were classified as "operational maintenance" to bypass complex procedures. The actual cost of work was inflated to 1.5 billion hryvnias.
Yuriy Holyk - the same Holyk whose vehicle entered the government quarter unchecked for three years, the same Holyk on whose phone investigators found 23 instances of NABU's covert investigative actions being leaked - is formally classified as a witness. No suspicion has been filed.
On April 11, 2024, on the basis of a disability certificate issued for his volunteer work with the charitable foundation "Songs Born in the ATO," Holyk departed for Austria. His exit permit remained valid until October 16, 2024.
The sixth question. To NABU and the SAPO. What is Yuriy Holyk's status in the Reznichenko-Khlanta case? Is he being treated as a co-conspirator, an organizer, or a witness? And when can the public expect clarity on this?
The Scandal Inside NABU
May 2024. Bihus.Info publishes materials drawn from Holyk's phones. The story is no longer just about corrupt contracts. It is about NABU's covert investigative activity, the timing of searches, information about pending suspicions - all of it being systematically leaked outside the agency.
On May 24, 2024, NABU Director Semen Kryvonos suspended his First Deputy Gizo Uglava. The official wording: "to ensure an objective pre-trial investigation."
Holyk's phone contained correspondence with Heorhiy Birkadze, an adviser at the Office of the President - a former presidential appointee and former head of the Brovary district administration. The picture that emerges: information obtained by Birkadze from inside NABU, then passed onward to Holyk.
Another individual in the correspondence has not been fully identified publicly. Investigative outlets refer to this person as "the high-ranking Japanese" - someone embedded inside the Bureau itself. Yet another figure has been identified as NABU detective Valeriy Polyuga from the secret D-2 division, subordinated to Uglava.
As of this writing, no suspicions have been filed against any of the figures in the case. At least 23 episodes of leaked covert investigative action are under examination.
The seventh question - and it may be the most important. If, for years, Ukraine's leading anti-corruption institution had information about its own investigations leaking out systematically - which corruption cases were preemptively derailed? How many subjects of investigation had time to move assets, destroy evidence, and leave the country? And when will NABU's leadership publicly account for the results of its internal review?
Trypilska Power Plant
On April 11, 2024, a Russian strike destroys the Trypilska Thermal Power Plant. Completely. A key generation facility for Kyiv and three neighboring regions is reduced to rubble in a single night.
Oleksandr Kubrakov, then still Deputy Prime Minister for Recovery, when asked about the protection of the facility, responded: "Obviously, it is impossible to protect static objects covering several hectares with any sarcophagus."
A year earlier, the state energy company Centrenergo had reported 100 percent protection of the Trypilska TPP from shrapnel and attack drones.
On May 9, 2024, twenty-eight days after the strike, Verkhovna Rada removed Kubrakov by a vote of 272 from his positions as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister. The official reason: "weak regional policy." Not a word about Trypilska. Not a word about the nine billion. Not a single public audit.
On January 7, 2025, Kubrakov received a position as adviser to the Minister of Defense. In January 2026, he became an adviser to the President for infrastructure.
The eighth question - to the Accounting Chamber, and to a temporary parliamentary investigation commission, should one be formed. Where did the nine billion hryvnias allocated for the protection of critical infrastructure go? Why were facilities reported as "fully protected" turned out to be unprotected? Will personal accountability be pursued?
The Great Recovery on the Same Rails
The war did not stop the scheme. The war accelerated it.
Bucha. 4.6 million hryvnias in damages to the local community from inflated prices on construction materials during reconstruction. Twelve defendants, including officials of the Bucha city council. The case was referred to court in 2025.
Irpin. Of 933 million hryvnias in reconstruction contracts, 434 million - nearly half - went to six companies with suspect backgrounds, including affiliations with pro-Russian party operatives.
Fortifications in Kherson and Zhytomyr oblasts. May 2025. Bihus.Info documented price inflation of approximately 35 million hryvnias and shell companies linked to figures close to President Zelensky's inner circle. The Kherson regional police opened a criminal proceeding.
Fortifications in Kharkiv oblast. July 2025. Andriy Rudenko, former deputy mayor of Kharkiv, and four accomplices, were named as suspects in the embezzlement of 5.4 million hryvnias from the state budget. Price inflation exceeding 30 percent. All five are in detention.
The Chernihiv bridge built by Shkil's Avtostrada. Investigations from 2024 documented the use of secondhand metal structures sold at the price of new ones. A temporary bridge intended to last several months - over 300 million hryvnias. The overpayment on metal structures alone - approximately 395 million. Total project cost - 5.8 billion hryvnias.
This is the same Shkil. The same Avtomagistral-Pivden. The same Onur. The same Rostdorstroy. Just operating under new tenders in new budget lines.
The Questions That Are Waiting for an Answer
I am not writing an indictment. Verdicts are issued by courts, not by journalists. And I am not prepared to assert that Tymoshenko, Kubrakov, Holyk, or the six founding companies of NADU are criminals. That is not my work.
My work is something else. My work is to record the questions to which the citizens of Ukraine have a right to receive clear answers.
Why is there no public, independent audit of a program that absorbed more than 195 billion hryvnias of state funds in two years?
Why, after four years of investigations by Bihus.Info, Nashi Hroshi, Skhemy - hundreds of stories with concrete names, concrete sums, concrete tenders - can the number of guilty verdicts be counted on the fingers of one hand?
Why have the central figures - Tymoshenko, Kubrakov, Holyk - either had no criminal charges filed against them, or hold the status of witnesses, or simply move from one government position to the next?
Why has none of the six contractor founders of NADU faced antimonopoly sanctions, despite years of documented one-to-three-percent discounts in tenders involving two "in-network" companies?
Why was information from inside NABU systematically ending up on the phone of a person without a government position?
Why was a Member of Parliament with an actually-transferred bribe allowed to leave the country in wartime?
Where did the 53 percent of the COVID fund - redirected into roads at the height of the pandemic - actually go?
Why are the schools unbuilt, the airports nonfunctional, the bridges temporary, but the spent sums final?
These are not rhetorical questions. They are questions to which specific people in specific institutions are obligated to respond. The Bureau of Economic Security. The State Bureau of Investigation. NABU and SAPO. The Antimonopoly Committee. The Accounting Chamber. The Office of the Prosecutor General.
I am waiting for answers. And so are the millions of Ukrainian taxpayers whose money went into the Great Construction.
Because when a state collects taxes from its citizens for roads, schools, and hospitals - and then there are neither roads, nor schools, nor hospitals, nor anyone held responsible - this is no longer corruption as a technical problem. This is a question of trust between the state and the citizen. A question on which depends whether it makes any sense, in this state, to build anything else.
Ten billion dollars. Remember this number every time the news cycle delivers another report that "the country's recovery will require hundreds of billions." Because if the questions about the first ten have not been answered, any new sum will dissolve into the same pockets as the previous one.
And we will once again stand and watch the water leak out of the river through the same hole.