Three business-class apartments for one family: how relatives of Deputy Minister of Justice Kravchenko acquired elite real estate worth $400,000

Three business-class apartments for one family: how relatives of Deputy Minister of Justice Kravchenko acquired elite real estate worth $400,000

Successful retired mother

Lyudmyla Kravchenko has extensive experience in public service. Since 2016, she worked as director of one of the departments at the Ministry of Justice. Later, in 2023, she headed a department at the Ministry of Infrastructure, and in 2024 — a department at the Ministry of Social Policy. In 2025, Lyudmyla returned to the Ministry of Justice and became Deputy Minister. It was then that the ministry was headed by German Galushchenko, who is now suspected of corruption. 

In January 2021, at a time when Lyudmyla Kravchenko was working at the Ministry of Justice, her mother Olha Oleksiyenko purchased an apartment in the capital’s residential complex “Pokrovskyi Posad”. 

“You drive up here and feel like a real bourgeois — a person of status, a person who has achieved something. Because she lives in the most beautiful complex in the capital,” the complex is described in a promotional video. 

Olha Oleksiyenko purchased an apartment in the capital’s residential complex “Pokrovskyi Posad” in January 2021

The apartment’s area is about 95 m². Officially, this property cost Lyudmyla Kravchenko’s mother approximately 4.4 million hryvnias, or $157,000 at the exchange rate at the time of purchase.

In 2022, Olha Oleksiyenko gifted the apartment in “Pokrovskyi Posad” to her granddaughter Anastasiya, Lyudmyla Kravchenko’s daughter. 

In 2022, Olha Oleksiyenko gifted the apartment in “Pokrovskyi Posad” to her granddaughter Anastasiya

Instead, the pensioner became the owner of property in another residential complex — Manhattan City. As indicated on the developer’s website, this is a residential complex with its own infrastructure: a lounge area, a food court, a promenade alley, a delicatessen market of premium products, and a gym with a swimming pool.

In 2023, Olha Oleksiyenko became the owner of property in the “Manhattan City” residential complex

In November 2023, Olha Oleksiyenko purchased an apartment here with an area of 52.5 m². That same month, according to the specialized website LUN.UA, one square meter in this complex cost at least 62,000 hryvnias, or about $1,700 at the National Bank’s exchange rate at the time. Thus, the market value of such an apartment in November 2023 should have been approximately $90,000.

The market value of the apartment purchased by Olha Oleksiienko should have been approximately $90,000

However, officially the property cost the mother of the official Lyudmyla Kravchenko more than twice as much less. The apartment cost almost 1 million 400 thousand hryvnias — about $38,000. 

Olha Oleksiyenko, the mother of Deputy Minister of Justice, who bought two apartments in Kyiv, is 73 years old. We found that the woman worked as a teacher at the Bohuslav Humanitarian College. Three of her former colleagues confirmed to us that it is indeed Lyudmyla Kravchenko’s mother — in particular, the date of birth and information about relatives matched. One of the interlocutors said that Olha Oleksiienko taught labor education.  

Lyudmyla Kravchenko and her daughter Anastasia refused to answer questions about where pensioner Olha Oleksiyenko got the money for real estate in the capital. 

Anomalies with the privatization of official housing

In May 2024, the husband of the current Deputy Minister of Justice, Volodymyr Kravchenko, purchased the rights to an apartment with an area of almost 80 m² in the “Shevchenkivskyi” residential complex.

In May 2024, Volodymyr Kravchenko purchased the rights to an apartment with an area of almost 80 m² in the “Shevchenkivskyi” residential complex

As the developer indicates, this complex differs from other new buildings in the capital by its modern apartment layouts, high quality of construction, and architecture that fully meets the standards of business-class housing.

“Shevchenkivskyi” residential complex

As of May 2024, the “Shevchenkivskyi” residential complex had already been commissioned several years earlier. Archived listings show that in mid-2024, one square meter here cost about $2,000. 

Thus, the market value of such an apartment at that time could have reached about $160,000, or approximately 6.3 million hryvnias at the exchange rate at the time of purchase.

In mid-2024, one square meter in the “Shevchenkivskyi” residential complex cost about $2,000

However, in the 2025 declaration, Lyudmyla Kravchenko indicates that the value of her husband’s apartment was only a little over two million hryvnias. That is three times below the market price.

The market value of Volodymyr Kravchenko’s apartment in 2024 could have reached about $160,000

Independent real estate expert and consultant Yevhenii Polunov noted in a comment that the very method of acquiring property through assignment of rights cannot explain the significant undervaluation of its value. 

“Despite the fact that this is a secondary sale, after registering the rights in one’s own name or through assignment, the benchmark is still the market price per square meter or analogs on the market… If the building has already been commissioned and assigned a postal address, then in fact all that remains is to register the ownership right and that’s it. That is, the buyer has almost no risks,” Polunov explained.

The Kravchenkos appear to have received part of the money for the purchase of the apartment in the “Shevchenkivskyi” residential complex from the sale of another property. This refers to an apartment with an area of about 95 m² in the village of Hatne near Kyiv in the “Ozernyi Hai” residential complex. It was official housing that the family privatized in 2021. We found certain anomalies in the history of this privatization.

Building in the “Ozernyi Hai” residential complex

At that time, in 2021, Lyudmyla Kravchenko herself no longer had the right to free privatization of housing, since she had already used it earlier. Likewise, her daughter Anastasia could not privatize the apartment.

The official’s husband, Volodymyr Kravchenko, had also already used his right to privatization, although not fully. According to documents obtained by the editorial office, as of 2021 he could only claim almost 7 m² of state housing.

It would seem that under such conditions it was impossible to privatize an apartment with an area of 95 m². However, the brother of the Deputy Minister of Justice, Serhiy Oleksiyenko, was registered in the official apartment.

Scheme of privatization of the apartment in Hatne

Unlike other family members, he had not yet used his right to privatization. As a result, the co-owners of the apartment in Hatne became the official’s brother Serhiy Oleksiyenko and her husband Volodymyr Kravchenko. And for the excess square meters, the family paid only 10 hryvnias.

Notably, in her asset declarations for 2020 and 2021, Lyudmyla Kravchenko did not list her brother as a cohabitant — that is, a family member. 

Likewise, Serhiy Oleksiyenko, who was then working in public service, did not mention his sister in his declarations. According to the documents, he lived in Irpin, not in Hatne, where the apartment is located. 

“We can assume with a high degree of probability that, since our declarant had already used his right to privatization, if only those family members who actually live there and had already used the right to privatization were registered in the apartment, then, of course, such privatization would have been denied. Therefore, it is likely that a relative was registered,” said Oleksiy Boyko, a lawyer at the Anti-Corruption Action Center, in a comment.   

The official’s brother Serhiy Oleksiyenko, in a conversation, initially did not mention which privatization was being referred to at all, and then stated that he had no time to talk to the journalist. The Deputy Minister’s husband, Volodymyr Kravchenko, also refused to comment on this privatization. He did not respond to further messages.

Nepotism at the Ministry of Justice? 

The media also drew attention to the fact that the career paths of Lyudmyla Kravchenko’s relatives intersected with the Ministry of Justice precisely during the period when she held a senior position there.  

For example, the public organization that Lyudmyla Kravchenko’s daughter Anastasiya Kravchenko belonged to signed a memorandum of cooperation with the Ministry of Justice in 2020. 

The public organization that Lyudmyla Kravchenko’s daughter Anastasia Kravchenko belonged to signed a memorandum of cooperation with the Ministry of Justice in 2020

And in 2023, daughter Anastasiya Kravchenko received a salary at the Ministry of Justice.

In 2023, daughter Anastasiya Kravchenko received a salary at the Ministry of Justice

In August 2020, Lyudmyla Kravchenko’s son-in-law Tornike Ugrehelidze, while unemployed, submitted a declaration as a candidate for the position of chief specialist of one of the departments of the Department of Public Law of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine. He did receive this position. And at that time, the department was headed by Lyudmyla Kravchenko. 

It may be a coincidence, but in 2020 Tornike Ugrehelidze was already in a relationship with Lyudmyla Kravchenko’s daughter — Anastasiya. In particular, in August of the same year, the girl published a photo showing a ring.

Lyudmyla Kravchenko’s daughter with an engagement ring

Could Lyudmyla Kravchenko have influenced the appointment of her daughter’s fiancé to the ministry and thus contributed to his career advancement? On May 29, the media sent a request to the Ministry of Justice asking Deputy Minister Lyudmyla Kravchenko to comment on this question, as well as a number of questions regarding her relatives’ acquisition of valuable property. As of the time of publication, the editorial office had not received a response to the request.

Since 2023, the official’s son-in-law, Tornike Ugrehelidze, has been working at the Ministry of Digital Transformation. In 2023, he joined the working group on assessing corruption risks in the activities of the Ministry of Digital Transformation. 

The ministry responded to the request: “The Ministry of Digital Transformation does not have the authority or legal grounds to oblige its employees to provide public comments on issues of a private nature that do not relate to their direct official duties.”

Response of the Ministry of Digital Transformation to the request

The brother of the Deputy Minister of Justice, Serhiy Oleksiyenko, who participated in the privatization of the apartment in Hatne, was also connected with the Ministry of Justice. From 2017 to 2023, the man worked as an inspector at the General Directorate of the State Penitentiary Service — a structure subordinate to the Ministry of Justice.