EUR 20 million villa found in possession of Kyiv-owned company head's wife

This is stated in the Bihus.Info investigation.

It is noted that the villa on the Côte d'Azur is registered to a French company. It was the villa that Ihor Kushnir's wife bought in 2019-2020.

The estate is located in the town of Villefranche-sur-Mer, near Nice, on a closed area of more than 5,000 square meters. The villa is called Cayo and has an area of 850 square meters. Inside, there are 6 bedrooms and private bathrooms, a large beige living room, a wine cellar, and a spacious kitchen. There is also a swimming pool with panoramic sea views, a large garden and a garage for 8 cars.

"The purchase process began in 2019, when Oksana Kushnir's Cypriot company Koksi Holding agreed to buy the French company SCP Cayo (in whose name the villa was registered) and paid an advance," the investigators note.

The final stage of registration took place in the spring of 2020. Investigative journalists found evidence of this in the financial documents of the company that sold Koksi Holding to Oksana Kushnir. The relevant data is also recorded in the audit report of Koksi Holding.

"The latter states a value of almost EUR 19 million. French realtors, whom Bihus.Info consulted before the broadcast, estimated the estate at EUR 20 million," the article adds.

Kushnir's reaction

In response to a request to comment on the purchase of an expensive asset, Ihor Kushnir replied in a letter that he does not own any movable or immovable property outside Ukraine.

For reference: Ihor Kushnir has been the president of Kyivmiskbud, a company 80% owned by the city of Kyiv, for more than 10 years. In early 2023, it suspended construction work and requested additional funding from the budget.

Earlier, journalists also discovered a gated cottage community. It appeared on the land in Kozyn that was withdrawn from Kyivmiskbud. Interestingly, it was built by Ihor Kushnir's business associates and relatives. The cost of the houses built there can be estimated at more than USD 3 million. Then the NABU became interested in the activities of Kyivmiskbud. In addition, the Kyiv City Council created a special commission to verify the facts published in the media.

Similar stories with exposed real estate purchases

The head of the Odesa military recruitment center, Yevhen Borysov, was caught in a similar story with the exposure of real estate purchases. On June 22, he became the subject of an investigation by Ukrainska Pravda journalists, Battalion Spain. According to the journalists, at the end of 2022, Borysov's family purchased a villa in the Spanish resort of Marbella. Its cost is almost EUR 4 million. He registered the real estate not for himself, but for his retired mother. Instead, Borisov's wife became the owner of an office space on the main street of Marbella.

In addition, the military commissar was traveling abroad. Operational Command South responded to this: "It was established that his travel abroad at that time was absolutely authorized and permitted."

Already on June 23, the parliament initiated inspections of territorial recruitment centers across Ukraine amid the scandalous story of the Odesa military commissariat. And President Volodymyr Zelenskyy instructed the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, to immediately dismiss Borysov.

On June 28, it became known that Yevhen Borysov no longer holds the position of head of the Odesa territorial recruitment center.

Another person involved in a similar scandal was Alina Levchenko, the wife of Bohdan Torokhtiy, a member of the Servant of the People faction. In August 2022, already during the war, she bought real estate in the resort town of Nessebar (Bulgaria), and a few months later, an apartment and a parking space in Kyiv, in Pechersk.

The MP refused to answer questions about his property in Bulgaria by phone and suggested sending an official request. After that, publications about the design of the Bulgarian apartment disappeared from the page of the MP's wife's design studio. In addition, Levchenko published an open letter on social media in which she referred to her previous assets, allegedly declared in 2020. And the Antonov State Enterprise announced the dismissal of Levchenko from her position as an advisor to the CEO.