Head of Ukrposhta Smilyanskyi hides his salary

Head of Ukrposhta Smilyanskyi hides his salary

In December 2024, Ihor Smilyanskyi headed the customs reform headquarters. This is an unpaid position. However, at the beginning of 2025, Ukrainians recalled the high salaries of the General Director of Ukrposhta. All attempts by Informator, lawyers, and deputies to find out the income of the head of the state enterprise were unsuccessful. Smilyanskyi even engaged in online battles, exchanging insults with officials.

On December 3, 2024, the Cabinet of Ministers appointed the General Director of Ukrposhta responsible for customs reform. He is doing this on a voluntary basis. However, his salary would be enough to hire even several dozen people to assist him. The salary of the head of the state enterprise, appointed during Petro Poroshenko’s presidency, also attracted the attention of deputies from "European Solidarity": for many of them, such incomes are unprecedented, especially in the state sector. Before the full-scale war, Smilyansky earned up to 19.24 million UAH per year at the state-run Ukrposhta.

MP Nina Yuzhanina initially exposed the fact that Ukrainians must pay 1 UAH from each parcel at Ukrposhta to the KSE fund of Tymofiy Mylovanov (these funds are mostly spent on the military). On January 7, she wrote that Igor Smilyansky’s salary for 2021 was 19.2 million UAH (or 1.6 million UAH/month), in 2022 it was projected at 18.3 million UAH (1.53 million UAH/month), and in 2023 it was planned to be 22.4 million UAH (1.86 million UAH/month).

However, there is a big difference between the actual salary received, the forecast, and the plan. Nina Yuzhanina, being an accountant, knows this, unlike her fellow party members and most Ukrainians. However, she does not have data on Smilyanskyi’s actual salary for 2022-2024. She sent an inquiry to the head of Ukrposhta and requested information on the number of people who received salaries exceeding 100 thousand UAH per month in 2024. In response, the astute General Director of the state enterprise replied that he "does not understand why she needs such information." Even though the law requires responding to deputies’ inquiries in essence.

On January 31, 2025, Informator sent a request to Ukrposhta’s press service regarding the salaries of its director, mail carriers, and heads of departments. No response has been received yet. 

On January 27, the legal protection group "Emergency Legal Assistance" contacted the Ministry of Infrastructure to provide information on Smilyanskyi’s salary (since the ministry is a 100% shareholder). The Ministry of Infrastructure reported that they do not have information about Smilyansky’s salary because it is determined by the supervisory board of Ukrposhta (which includes the Deputy Minister, by the way).

In response to the lawyers’ inquiry, Ukrposhta stated that the director’s salary is not fixed and provided a link to their website, which shows the rate. However, in the document provided by Ukrposhta’s Deputy Director for Financial Affairs, Maksym Paliy, in January 2022, it is indicated that the salary in the postal management body can range from 223,311 UAH to 310,928 UAH per month. But Smilyanskyi was receiving 5 times more!

When asked about his salary on Facebook, Smilyanskyi also did not respond. Speculations about the salary were fueled by deputies Oleksiy Honcharenko and Iryna Herashchenko (they were also not informed about Smilyansky’s salary). Meanwhile, the "Servant of the People" MP Danylo Hetmantsev praised the postal operator "for leadership" and tax payments. 

How much Smilyanskyi earned previously

Since July 1, 2016, Ihor Smilyansky has been serving as the General Director of the state-owned Ukrposhta. The official submitted public declarations for 2016 and 2017. Then, for some reason, he stopped. Informator contacted the Ministry of Finance to comment on why Smilyanskyi was granted such a privilege and who else may not publish declarations. This query was redirected to the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NAPC), which maintains the declaration register. Now, his declarations can only be seen in the tax office. 

For six months in 2016, Smilyanskyi’s salary amounted to 1,769,597 UAH. In 2017, it was 3,958,541 UAH for the year. In 2019, Smilyanskyi revealed that his salary was 743,000 UAH/month (or at least 8,916,000 UAH in salary per year).

We reviewed official documents. In fact, Smilyanskyi’s salary (with bonuses and allowances) was:

• 19,238,000 UAH for 2021;
• 16,730,000 UAH for 2020;
• 15,265,000 UAH for 2019; 
• 6,864,000 UAH for 2018; 
• 3,958,500 UAH for 2017;
• 1,769,500 UAH for the half year in 2016.

In 2020, he already claimed to earn 836,000 UAH/month (or 10,032,000 UAH/year), although according to Ukrposhta’s plan he was supposed to earn 22,402,000 UAH per year. Back then, his words were disputed by the Ministry of Infrastructure - in fact, he earned 1,410,306 UAH per month (including bonuses). At the same time, he noted that his salary is 200 times the salary of a regular mail carrier (as set by the Cabinet of Ministers).

In 2020, Ukrposhta’s mail carriers averaged 6,400 UAH/month. In 2025, based on available vacancies, it’s 7,200 UAH (part-time) - 11,850 UAH. So, if there were no war, under the new contract Smilyansky could earn 8,000 (the minimum salary in Ukraine, some mail carriers earn) x 200 = 1,6 million UAH basic salary monthly + bonuses, allowances, sick pay, which would allow receiving up to 38 million UAH under this formula if Ukrposhta was taken out of loss-making.

At the Supreme Court, they complain: Ukrposhta’s letters and parcels are lost and delayed

Head of the Supreme Court’s Office Viktor Kapustynskyi noted that the closure of Ukrposhta departments in cassation courts’ buildings led to negative consequences. As the head of the Supreme Court’s Office explained, cassation courts’ staff last year even had to travel across the capital’s postal departments to search for legal cases. According to the head of the Supreme Court, Ukrposhta lost the materials of several legal cases altogether. However, according to Viktor Kapustynskyi, "the situation has slightly improved now."

"From the moment the postal departments ceased to function in cassation courts’ buildings, we immediately encountered the problem of delaying mail correspondence for the Supreme Court. Delivering a significant number of legal cases to the Supreme Court took months," emphasizes Viktor Kapustynskyi.

At the end of 2024, the Head of the Supreme Court Stanislav Kravchenko remarked somewhat oddly, pointing out that postal notices for courts are not only delivered late but are also sent to other cities for some reason. As Kravchenko added, the judicial authority needs to gradually reduce its reliance on Ukrposhta and develop e-justice.

"We currently have many issues with Ukrposhta. When proceedings are being held in Kyiv, for some reason, mail for the courts is sent from Kyiv to Kharkiv. Such a situation affects the deadlines for case adjudication," noted the head of the Supreme Court.