A thousand hectares and luxury Audis: how Mukhtarov, the head of the ‘Servant of the People’ faction in Poltava region, built up a secret agricultural empire

Fakhraddin Mukhtarov Aladdin-ogly is a deputy of the Poltava Regional Council from the “Servant of the People” party and head of the party’s faction in the council. His 2024 declaration lists more than 70 land plots. Almost all of them are in the village of Andriivka in the Poltava region.

But this is only what is visible in the declaration. In reality, the scale of the Mukhtarov family’s land assets is much larger.

The outlet MediaDokaz found that the deputy and his ex-wife control nearly a thousand hectares of agricultural land through personal ownership and a joint company. At the same time, the deputy is a member of the executive committee of the very community where he runs his business.

“This is my buddy”

Fakhraddin Mukhtarov has been a deputy of the Poltava Regional Council since 2015. Initially from the “Petro Poroshenko Bloc,” and since 2020 from “Servant of the People.” He currently heads the Servant of the People faction in the council.

During his first term as a deputy, Mukhtarov served on the land commission of the regional council. However, according to the Chesno movement, during the first year of his mandate he missed half of the commission and session meetings (if he had missed one more, he could have been recalled). It seems the deputy’s interest in land turned out to be far greater than his interest in land commission meetings. But more on that later.

Mukhtarov gained notoriety not in the regional council, but on the Boryspil highway.

On August 23, 2021, an accident occurred there. An Audi A8, a Ford, and a Daewoo collided. Several ambulance teams responded. Six people were injured, including Luciano Luchi, head of the Referees Committee of the Ukrainian Association of Football, who was hospitalized with serious injuries.

At the scene was “Servant of the People” MP Oleksandr Trukhin. In the car with him was Fakhraddin Mukhtarov. In footage from a patrol officer’s body camera, Trukhin can be heard pointing to Mukhtarov, who is lying injured on the asphalt, and saying: “This is my buddy.”

Dozens of media outlets quickly reported the accident. But within a day, most of the publications disappeared. Journalists from several outlets publicly stated that after the news about the crash, they received letters offering to remove the materials “on commercial terms.” Trukhin initially avoided commenting and later confirmed his involvement in the accident, explaining his silence with “an investigators’ ban.”

On February 1, 2022, Ukrainska Pravda published an investigation with video evidence. The recordings show Trukhin trying to avoid responsibility, offering bribes to police officers, promising to “come to an agreement” with Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyi, and refusing to take an alcohol test.

The Audi belonged to the agricultural production cooperative “Andriivskyi” from the village of Andriivka in the Khorol community of Poltava region. Until 2024, Mukhtarov was one of the beneficiaries of this cooperative. In 2019, according to analytical portals, Trukhin’s parents were also among the beneficiaries.

Following the scandal, Trukhin was expelled from the “Servant of the People” party. Mukhtarov also resigned as head of the faction in the regional council and publicly disavowed his partner.

But later he returned to the position.

Land conveyor

The village of Andriivka lies 15 kilometers from the town of Khorol in Poltava region. It is part of the Khorol urban territorial community in Lubny district. This is a small rural community in central Ukraine — about five hundred people live here.

The village is not accidental in Mukhtarov’s biography. It is home to the cooperative “Andriivskyi,” whose car was involved in the accident with Trukhin driving. Until 2019, Andriivka Agro LLC also operated here, co-owned by Mukhtarov and Trukhin.

And it was here in the summer of 2024 that a massive land acquisition appears to have taken place.

Mukhtarov’s 2024 declaration lists more than 70 land plots. Almost all are in Andriivka. For comparison, in 2022 there were only 15. Over three years, the amount of land increased several times.

How exactly did this happen?

We obtained official extracts from the State Register of Property Rights to Real Estate. Between June 10 and 12, 2024, notary Daryna Bereza from Khorol certified land purchase and sale agreements: the numbers follow one after another. All concern land plots in Andriivka. The buyer in these transactions is one and the same — Fakhraddin Mukhtarov, deputy of the Poltava Regional Council and head of the “Servant of the People” faction.

State Register of Property Rights to Real Estate

We asked the deputy how the purchase of dozens of plots over several days technically took place.

In his written response, he stated that the notary verified documents “confirming the sources of funds used to acquire ownership of the land plot.”

According to him, most of these land plots were purchased from former owners of the farm who had previously bought the plots from citizens and thus consolidated them. One person acted on behalf of the seller under a power of attorney, and the necessary preparatory work for concluding the agreements had been carried out in advance.

But there were other transactions as well.

Even earlier, on June 6–7, 2024, the same notary Bereza certified more than 60 land purchase and sale agreements in the same village. All in one name — Yevheniya Hotvyanska.

Another 29 land plots owned by Hotvianska could not be identified by purchase date. According to “Kadastr.UA,” their numbers were not found, indicating that these plots had been transferred to legal entities. Access to the register of legal entities’ property is currently restricted.

But even without these plots, the total number of acquired land exceeds 100 plots (172.6 ha owned by the deputy, 252 ha by Hotvianska).

Who is Yevheniya Hotvyanska?

Ex-wife

The name Yevheniya Hotvyanska appeared during journalists’ analysis of the cadastral plan of one of Deputy Mukhtarov’s plots. It turned out that it borders land owned by Hotvyanska Yevheniya Ivanivna.

This name appeared in Mukhtarov’s first 2016 declaration. At that time, he listed Hotvyanska as his wife. The couple has two sons — Demirel and Demir.

In 2017, the wife disappears from the deputy’s declarations. Officially, the couple divorced.

But land cadastre data shows that even after the divorce, Mukhtarov and Hotvyanska synchronously bought land in the same village, through the same notary, on close dates. Their plots effectively form a single land massif.

Based solely on the plots that could be identified, this amounts to 5.5 million hryvnias in expenses. This is calculated at the minimum prices from the 2024 declaration.

Dividends from a loss-making cooperative

Does the deputy have the money to buy such a large number of land plots?

In his 2024 declaration, Fakhraddin Mukhtarov reported 6 million 630 thousand hryvnias in dividends from the “Andriivskyi” cooperative — the same cooperative from Andriivka whose car was involved in the accident with Trukhin. At the same time, the deputy’s share in the cooperative is only one thousand hryvnias, equivalent to 20% of the cooperative’s statutory capital.

Open sources contain the financial statements of the “Andriivskyi” cooperative for 2024. They show that the cooperative’s net loss for that year amounted to minus 67 million 805 thousand hryvnias.

Youcontrol

Most interestingly, the line “Payment of dividends” shows zero. Meanwhile, Mukhtarov declared almost seven million hryvnias specifically as dividends from this cooperative.

Youcontrol

We asked the deputy how this was possible. Fakhraddin Mukhtarov stated that “all required taxes and fees were paid on the dividends received and declared in 2024, namely personal income tax and military levy.” He also said that “the payment of the specified dividends is fully reflected in the tax and financial reporting of the ‘Andriivskyi’ cooperative.”

The company is currently in liquidation.

“Solar Line”

However, the “Andriivskyi” cooperative is not the only company through which Mukhtarov conducts business in Andriivka. And the scale of his land assets appears to be significantly larger than what can be seen in the declarations.

When checking Mukhtarov’s and Hotvianska’s land plots, we noticed that some neighboring plots belong to other people but are leased to Solar Line LLC.

The LLC was registered in 2018. Co-owners are Fakhraddin Mukhtarov and Yevheniya Hotvyanska. Each owns 50% of the statutory capital. Both are listed as ultimate beneficial owners.

According to open registers, the company owns 11 real estate objects, 876 land plots, and 8 vehicles, including Audi models from 2023 and 2024.

Clarity Project

The company also has an Audi S8 2025, priced from 5 million hryvnias.

Clarity Project

In Mukhtarov’s 2024 declaration, Solar Line LLC appears differently. He notes that he leases two vehicles from the company — an Audi A4 2024 and an Audi A6 Allroad 2023. He also declares corporate rights in the LLC valued at only 4.5 thousand hryvnias.

In other words, the deputy owns 50% of a company that has several premium-class vehicles. And he leases these vehicles from his own company. We asked an anti-corruption expert whether he is required to declare the value of this lease and whether this could be a way to use expensive property without declaring income.

Serhiy Mytkalyk, executive director of the Anti-Corruption Headquarters NGO, explained that if the annual lease value does not exceed 50 subsistence minimums — approximately 150 thousand hryvnias — such expenses do not need to be declared.

Formally, the law is not violated. But the result is that the deputy leases luxury cars from a company he himself owns and may not indicate their value because the “lease” does not exceed the required limit.

But that is not all.

In 2024, the executive committee of the Khorol City Council published a notice about the start of public discussions on an environmental impact assessment report for Solar Line LLC. The company planned to operate a dairy farm with an increase in capacity to raise up to 4,999 head of cattle. The facility is located in the village of Novyi Bairak in the community.

A farm of nearly five thousand head of cattle is a large-scale operation. It appears that Solar Line LLC is a full-fledged agribusiness holding with 876 land plots and a livestock complex.

At the same time, Mukhtarov, who owns 50% of this company, does not declare any income, dividends, or increase in the value of corporate rights from it.

According to the deputy, as of today Solar Line LLC uses 3,500 hectares of agricultural land, maintains more than 1,200 dairy cows for milk production (with a perspective of up to 5,000 including young stock), which requires appropriate buildings, structures, and technical equipment to support the production process. All profits of the company, after paying the taxes required by law, are not distributed among the participants but are directed toward creating and developing the necessary material and technical base.

He denied that Solar Line LLC is an agribusiness holding “given the criteria defined by law” and described the company as a “medium-sized enterprise.”

But this is not the only question for the deputy.

In addition to being a regional council deputy, since August 2021 Fakhraddin Mukhtarov has been a member of the executive committee of the Khorol urban community. This was reported to us by the city council in response to a media inquiry. The community includes the village of Andriivka. It is there that the deputy and his ex-wife control nearly a thousand land plots (through the LLC and personally).

The executive committee makes decisions on community development, land use, infrastructure projects, and allocation of budget funds. In 2024, this very executive committee, of which Mukhtarov is a member, published the notice about public discussions on the construction of a dairy farm by the company on community territory. Thus, as a member of the executive committee, Mukhtarov has a vote in making these decisions.

The media asked the Khorol executive committee whether Mukhtarov voted on decisions concerning his assets and whether he declared a conflict of interest. The response stated that in 2025 the executive committee considered only the issue of removing hazardous trees for the “Andriivskyi” cooperative. However, Mukhtarov was not present at the meeting. No decisions regarding Solar Line LLC were made by the executive committee.

The deputy also assures that since 2022 he has not participated in executive committee meetings at all. “Due to constant workload — business and volunteer activities — it is possible to attend executive committee meetings very rarely,” Mukhtarov explained. According to him, he did not participate in votes that could create “even a potential conflict of interest.”

But the fact remains: he is a member of the executive committee in the community where he controls nearly a thousand plots and owns a company that operates a livestock complex there.

Moreover, the community’s official website features photos of him together with Khorol Mayor Serhiy Voloshyn presenting certificates on the Day of Agricultural Workers.

We contacted Fakhraddin Mukhtarov several times. The only mobile phone listed in the registers is out of service. The deputy is not registered in any messengers under this number, which is unusual for a public figure and head of a regional council faction.

The media contacted Nataliya Marusenko, listed on the regional council website as the deputy’s assistant. She said she is currently in Kharkiv, does not contact Mukhtarov, and cannot help obtain a comment. When asked how to reach the deputy, she replied that he has no office.

The media sent an official request to the Poltava Regional Council asking for Mukhtarov’s contact details. After that, a representative of a company that, according to him, handles the deputy’s communications, contacted us. He said he would pass on the journalists’ questions. Only after that did we receive responses.

Yevheniya Hotvyanska refused to comment on the purchase of plots in Andriivka.

A few days after receiving a response from MediaDokaz, Deputy Mukhtarov submitted a declaration for 2025. There, he officially listed Yevheniya Hotvyanska as a “person who lives together with him and is not married.” This appears to be an admission that the divorce existed only on paper.

In the previous declaration, the woman was not listed as a family member at all, so her assets were not included. Now the new declaration shows nearly one hundred land plots registered in her name personally. She actively purchased land throughout 2024.

Interestingly, the value of most plots the deputy had acquired earlier has decreased in the new declaration. For example, a 39,000-square-metre plot in Andriivka, valued at 149,000 hryvnias in the 2023 declaration, is now listed at 79,000 hryvnias in the 2024 declaration — almost half the previous amount. This is due to a change in valuation method: the earlier declaration used “value on the date the right was acquired,” while the new one uses “value according to the latest monetary assessment.”

The declaration now states that Hotvyanska owns a house in Sokilnyky, Lviv region, and an apartment in Dnipro. Real estate in Lobkova Balka — a village that, like Andriivka, belongs to the Khorol community — has also appeared for the first time. It consists of a hotel room and two non-residential premises. All of this property belongs to Tetyana Kompaniyets, while Mukhtarov and Hotvyanska use it “for business activities.”

The new declaration lists much more expensive cars: a 2024 Land Rover Range Rover worth 4.1 million hryvnias (used by Hotvyanska) and a 2022 Audi S8 worth 4.3 million hryvnias (used by Mukhtarov). Both belong to third-party companies — “Aelita Premium” and “Aelita Motors” — and are leased to “Solar Line.” The couple has a “right of use” over these vehicles. A 2006 Jaguar XJ8 belonging to the deputy’s ex-wife has also appeared.

Author: Alyona Malichenko

Source: MediaDokaz