Hid 30 million hryvnias of his common-law wife in the declaration: NACP exposes top policeman of Poltava region Balashov

Hid 30 million hryvnias of his common-law wife in the declaration: NACP exposes top policeman of Poltava region Balashov

In addition, the police department head stated in his filing that he lives at his place of work — in the service premises of the unit in Zinkiv. However, the NACP found that this information was false: the police officer lives in Poltava with his common-law wife and their joint child. Also, in his declaration, Serhiy Balashov did not list Yanina Aranchiy as a family member, which meant that her income, real estate, and car were not reflected in the filing.

Yanina Aranchiy heads the Main Department of the State Service of Ukraine on Food Safety and Consumer Protection in Poltava Region (currently on maternity leave). Her mother, Valentyna Aranchiy, is the first vice-rector of Poltava State Agrarian University. Both are members of the regional council.

Undeclared real estate

As a result of the audit, the NACP identified property not mentioned in the filing worth more than 5.7 million UAH in total.

Serhiy Balashov did not provide information about the use of a residential house with an area of 221.8 m² in Poltava. The property belongs to Valentyna Aranchiy, and the police department head and Yanina Aranchiy lived there together. According to experts, the minimum market value of the house as of the end of 2024 could have been 4.6 million UAH.

The filing also lacks information about three Poltava apartments owned by Yanina Aranchiy:

• an apartment with an area of 46.5 m² (ownership acquired in 2017), the value of which under the construction contract is nearly 303 thousand UAH;
• an apartment with an area of 63.5 m² (ownership acquired in 2018), the value of which under the gift agreement is 532 thousand UAH;
• an apartment with an area of 45.5 m² (ownership acquired in 2018), the value of which under the construction contract is 300 thousand UAH.

Premium crossover

The police officer did not declare an Audi Q7 passenger car manufactured in 2020 in his declaration. According to the vehicle register, Yanina Aranchiy received this car as a gift from her brother Dmytro Aranchiy in May 2024. The contract itself did not specify the car’s value, but experts estimated its minimum market value at the time of acquisition at 2.5 million UAH.

Income of common-law wife

Serhiy Balashov did not reflect Yanina Aranchiy’s income in the filing, totaling more than 7 million 115 thousand UAH, although she declared it herself.

The main part of this amount comes from the sale of real estate — nearly 6.7 million UAH. In addition, her salary at the regional department of the State Service on Food Safety and Consumer Protection (218 thousand UAH) and three types of social benefits from various state institutions totaling more than 216 thousand UAH were not indicated.

Monetary assets and accounts

The NACP reported that Serhiy Balashov did not declare his common-law wife’s savings or his own funds in accounts. Specifically, the filing does not indicate:

• Yanina Aranchiy’s cash holdings of $225 thousand (more than 9.5 million UAH) and 5 million UAH;
• a loan of more than 1.6 million UAH that she provided to Serhiy Balashov as revolving financial assistance. The police officer listed this amount only as his own debt but did not indicate it as Yanina Aranchiy’s asset;
• funds in bank accounts and the existence of open accounts at the bank.

Audit conclusions

Following the NACP audit, the total amount of information in Serhiy Balashov’s declaration that differs from the accurate data is nearly 30 million UAH.

According to the oversight body’s conclusion, the law enforcement officer’s actions show signs of a criminal offense under the article on declaring false information.

Like Serhiy Balashov, Yanina Aranchiy did not list him in her 2025 declaration as a family member. Both are subjects of anti-corruption investigations.

The first criminal proceeding concerns suspected illicit enrichment of Serhiy Balashov. Investigators of the State Bureau of Investigations are checking how the police officer, without corresponding official income, could have acquired real estate worth 13.5 million UAH. The property is registered in the names of his relatives, who also did not have sufficient official income. Within the same case, law enforcement officers also examined information about a possible attempt to obtain a fictitious disability status for the couple’s child with Yanina Aranchiy in order to travel to Poland.

Another criminal case concerns fictitious employment. SBI investigators believe that the head of the State Service on Food Safety and Consumer Protection in Poltava Region, Yanina Aranchiy, and the chief accountant of the regional laboratory under the service’s structure, Tetyana Radevych, employed a woman who received a salary from the state budget but did not perform her official duties and instead cared for Aranchiy’s child. The investigation also concerns another person who, according to investigators, may have been fictitiously employed by the regional State Service on Food Safety and Consumer Protection to obtain an exemption from mobilization.

Both criminal proceedings were opened in March of last year: searches under the first investigation took place in July, and under the second — in December.

In January this year, the publication “Poltavshchyna” sent information requests to Yanina Aranchiy and Tetyana Radevych asking them to comment on the law enforcement allegations of fictitious employment. However, the journalists received no response. The regional department of the State Service on Food Safety and Consumer Protection only reported that Yanina Aranchiy has been on social leave to care for a child from the end of October 2025 until June 2028.