A deputy from the Servant of the People Oleksiy Romanko bought 6 real estate properties in Kyiv for $1 million (nearly UAH 40 million!!!) in 2 years of being a deputy.
Many of the “new faces” who entered power in the recent elections saw their wealth grow rapidly as they began their political careers. Even a large-scale Russian invasion doesn't stop those in power from making money through new opportunities in office.
So, a humble “servant of the people” from the Sumy Regional Council, Aleksey Romanko, transformed from a regular entrepreneur to the owner of six real estate properties in Kiev worth almost $1 million in just two years as an elected official. It's not hard to understand how a deputy from Shostka quickly acquired millions for these purchases, given the numerous corruption scandals involving this deputy.
Before the 2020 local elections, Aleksey Romanko was relatively unknown even in his home region of Sumy. When he joined the regional council, he was a private entrepreneur and the owner of Zavod Satel, a company involved in timber harvesting and trading. Just a few years ago, the future deputy earned a living as a forester in one of the forestry enterprises. However, things quickly changed in his life after entering the regional council and joining the ruling Servant of the People party.
The Kyiv apartments of the Shostka deputy
Before joining the regional council, according to real estate records, the new politician owned only three real estate properties in Shostka and Shostka district. These included an 80 sq. m property in Shostka, a country house in the village of Makovoye, Shostkinsky district, with an area of 67 sq. m, and non-residential premises in Shostka covering an area of 780 sq. m with a garage.
Romanko purchased all these properties between 2017 and 2020. Romanko was not a poor person before the elections, but new real estate properties started appearing in his possession at an unnatural pace after he received a deputy mandate.
In less than six months after his election, in July 2021, Romanko purchased two one-room apartments, each with an area of about 50 square meters, in one of the buildings in Poznyaki, Kyiv. These were located on the 7th and 17th floors. Currently, the cost of such apartments in this area is up to $100 thousand, and prices were even higher in 2021, before the full-scale invasion.
Just four months later, Romanko bought another apartment and several non-residential premises, this time in the elite Pechersk area. On October 13, a two-room apartment in Pechersk with an area of almost 47 square meters was added to Romanko's property, as well as non-residential property covering an area of 67 sq. m.
In this area, the price per square meter of real estate is at least $2.5 thousand, so the last two properties should have cost Romanko about $280 thousand.
One year has passed, and during the full-scale war, Alexei Romanko purchased two additional apartments in the capital. This time, the Shostka deputy chose a new residential complex near the Levoberezhnaya metro station. On September 29, 2022, Romanko bought three-room apartments of 97 sq. m and 88 sq. m. At present prices, these two apartments will also cost around 280 thousand dollars.
It's clear that as Romanko stays in power longer, his property becomes more expensive. The first two apartments he bought six months after receiving the mandate could be considered budget apartments, but the ones in Pechersk and Levoberezhnaya are, to a certain extent, elite real estate. Romanko didn't stop at just six objects in Kyiv. His closest relatives also own apartments in the capital.
The deputy’s mother, Tatyana Petrovna Romanko, bought an apartment of 56.8 square meters in the Riverstone premium residential complex on the picturesque bank of the Dnieper. In the same complex, an old friend, Romanko’s partner in business and deputy from the Servant of the People party in the Sumy Regional Council, Alexander Slyusar, has two apartments.
The cost of the deputy’s mother’s apartment in the Riverstone complex is about $140,000. Additionally, she owns a house in Shostka with an area of 240 square meters.
So, the total value of all real estate owned by deputy Romanko and his mother is around 850 thousand dollars. In two years of being in power, the Shostka businessman, who recently sawed and sold timber, has practically become a millionaire. But the source of deputy Romanko’s superprofits is quite easy to establish, having familiarized himself with journalistic investigations into corruption in the Sumy Regional Council.
Shostka schemes
Back in April 2021, when Romanko had just become a deputy of the regional council and, apparently, was already inquiring about the price of the first real estate in the capital, the well-known Sumy activist and anti-corruption activist Yaroslav Bondarenko conducted his own investigation and collected evidence of Romanko’s involvement in the illegal sale of timber.
According to Bondarenko, large quantities of round timber are sold abroad from Shostka, which do not have the necessary chips, indicating illegal logging. One of the trucks filled with such illegally cut down forest was even detained by law enforcement officers and sent to a penalty area. However, when it was discovered that the owner of the car and the goods in it is the current deputy of the regional council from the pro-presidential party, the car was returned to the owner and this story was quickly forgotten.
As Bondarenko points out, in the illegal logging and sale of forests scheme, Romanko's friend and neighbor of his mother in Kiev real estate Slyusar, who is also a deputy from the Servant of the People, is actively involved together with Romanko.
Another prominent corruption story happened to Romanko during a full-scale invasion. In the fall of 2022, a major scandal took place in the Sumy region. According to the State Bureau of Investigation, more than 40 wagons with diesel fuel and liquefied gas were stolen in the region in the amount of more than UAH 27 million. This property belonged to Ukrainian entrepreneurs. Criminal proceedings No. 62022170040000021 were opened for this crime, and one of the defendants in the scheme, Viktor Gubenko, chairman of the Shostka district state administration, has already been suspected. According to media reports, Aleksey Romanko is also involved in the implementation of this scheme.
Another deal, in which Romanko is suspected, is the implementation of a scheme for fraudulently taking possession of land plots, which should be transferred free of charge to residents of the Shostkinsky district for their own agriculture. Law enforcement agencies opened criminal proceedings on the fact of illegal re-registration of land plots No. 42022202550000008. But the results of the investigation of this production are not yet available, obviously because the deputies from the ruling party are the defendants here.
As you can see, the sources of superprofits of the Shostka deputy are extremely doubtful from the point of view of legality and deserve more attention from law enforcement officers than we are seeing now, and a harsh reaction from the leadership of the Servant of the People party.
By and large, Romanko’s case is similar to the scandal that recently involved another “servant of the people”, people’s deputy from the Chernihiv region Pavel Khalimon. Let us recall that in the summer of 2022 he acquired a luxurious estate in the center of Kyiv in the name of his cohabitant. When, thanks to a journalistic investigation, this story became public, Khalimon was dismissed from the post of chairman of the Chernihiv regional organization “Servants of the People”, and criminal proceedings were opened against the people’s deputy under the article “illegal enrichment”.
After all, the very fact that during the war, when the defenders of Ukraine on the front lines need daily help in acquiring protective equipment, cars, drones or thermal imagers, incumbent MPs spend tens of millions on luxury real estate, is absolutely immoral. After all, only for the money that Romanko and Khalimon spent on their beautiful life, it would be possible to provide an entire combat unit with the best equipment. We hope that in the history of the dizzying enrichment of Alexei Romanko, competent persons will draw the right conclusions.
