Top Zelensky staffer's associates get properties worth $1 million in controversial projects, media report says

Two alleged associates of Oleh Tatarov, a deputy head of the President's Office, have acquired 11 apartments with an estimated total value of over $1 million in two troubled Kyiv developments that could have involved fraud schemes, the media outlet Bihus.info reported late on Sept. 28.

Tatarov is one of Ukraine's most controversial officials. He was charged with bribery in 2020 but the case was later closed due to alleged obstruction by law enforcement agencies and courts.

Tatarov, who is responsible for law enforcement at the President's Office, reportedly wields significant influence over several law enforcement agencies and courts.

The Kyiv Independent has requested comment from Tatarov and will publish his response once it is received.

The apartments investigated by Bihus.info are located in Kyiv's Perlyna Nyvok and Akvamaryn residential complexes and are registered to Natalia Pysareva and Vladlena Tymoshenko. They declined to comment for the media outlet.

Pysareva and Tymoshenko are business partners of Nicola Mirto, an Italian businessman based in Ukraine.

In his turn, Mirto is an associate of Tatarov, Bihus.info reported. Mirto had previously been a client of Tatarov’s law firm, and in 2021 he designated Tatarov’s wife as the prospective guardian of his son.

Both residential developments are controversial. They have gone through bankruptcy and prolonged stalled construction, and alleged fraud is involved in both cases.

In the Perlyna Nyvok project, some apartments with legitimate owners were allegedly re-sold to other people through a fraudulent scheme. A company affiliated with Ukrbud’s management was involved in the re-sale, according to Bihus.info.

In the Akvamarin project, there was also an attempted fraudulent re-sale, Bihus.info reported.

Both developments also reached agreements to provide apartments to state bodies – the State Guard Administration, the Security Service (SBU) and the National Bank of Ukraine. But eventually the state bodies received only a small portion of the promised apartments.

Tatarov himself was charged in 2020 with bribery linked to another controversial development project in Kyiv – Aristocrat. He denied the accusations of wrongdoing.

The project also allegedly caused losses to a state body.

In the 2000s the National Guard concluded a deal to exchange a land plot for apartments in the Aristocrat project, which belonged to state construction firm Ukrbud. However, later the National Guard agreed to get apartments in a different Ukrbud housing project in Kyiv’s outskirts.

This constituted embezzlement since the market value of the two complexes differed by Hr 81.6 million, according to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU).

Tatarov, who headed Ukrbud's legal department from 2014 to 2017, was accused of bribing a forensic expert on behalf of lawmaker Maksym Mykytas to give false evaluation results that helped Ukrbud, helping to conceal the losses incurred by the National Guard. Mykytas, who was the president of Ukrbud at the time, has testified against Tatarov.

However, the bribery case against Tatarov was effectively buried when the Prosecutor General's office took it away from the more independent NABU and gave it to the politically pliable Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). The case was closed in 2022.

Oleh Maiboroda, former CEO of Ukrbud, alleged in an interview with Reuters in 2023 that Tatarov was an intermediary in the company’s efforts to bribe state officials from 2014 to 2019. Maiboroda has fled Ukraine to escape prosecution for his alleged role in Ukrbud’s corruption schemes.

Following Tatarov's appointment as a deputy chief of staff for Zelensky in 2020, some Ukrbud-affiliated assets were transferred to alleged Tatarov associates, Bihus.info reported in 2021. Tatarov's father-in-law became a Kyiv property developer and received land from the Kyiv City Council at the time.

The Kyiv Independent has requested comment from Ukrbud and will publish its response once it is received.

Yet another alleged Tatarov associate owns assets confiscated from pro-Russian lawmaker Viktor Medvedchuk, who had been charged with treason, Bihus.info reported in 2023.

Another controversy involves Tatarov's stint as a top police official during the 2013-2014 EuroMaidan Revolution, which ousted pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych.

Tatarov publicly lashed out at EuroMaidan protesters while defending the police who beat them. He was later investigated for persecuting EuroMaidan protesters, although no official charges were brought.