Declarations of top officials 2024: How high-ranking officials manage to buy cars for "three cents"

From the register of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), journalists selected 23.2 thousand declarations for 2024. These declarations stated that the declarant is related to the category "Persons whose positions belong to the civil service categories "A" or "B." Journalists investigated how many new cars, real estate, and incomes they received in 2024.

Cars

According to NABU’s register, in 2024, the families of 23.2 thousand high-ranking Ukrainian officials purchased 3.5 thousand new cars with a total value of 1.33 billion UAH. Considering that the average family size of a declarant is 2.5 people, it turns out that for every thousand people, there are 61 cars purchased in the showroom.

However, evaluating this number without context is difficult.

According to the State Customs Service, in 2024, Ukraine imported 300 thousand cars (new and used), which cost 4.38 billion USD (about 175 billion UAH). Taking into account the internal secondary market, the total number of transactions reached 938 thousand.

On the other hand, about 32 million people live in the government-controlled territories. This was stated by Minister for National Unity Oleksiy Chernyshov in February. Thus, for every thousand Ukrainians, there are about 29 purchases, which is half as many as among the families of top officials.

Cars per 1000 people

There is another characteristic. In nine out of ten cases, when the media checked the most expensive cars of high-ranking officials, the owners were not the declarants but their spouses. All of them are successful businessmen.

For example, as in the case of the head of the customs post "Southern" Serhiy Pustovoytenko, whose wife became the owner of a brand new Audi SQ8 for 5 million UAH in 2024. This rule works regardless of gender: if the declarant is a man, the car is purchased by the wife, if a woman, the husband buys it.

Real Estate

In 2024, the high-ranking officials analyzed by journalists acquired 4,3 thousand real estate objects (excluding rentals but including other forms of usage). The analysis included three main types of objects: plots of land (2,170 units with a total area of 1,836 hectares), houses (653), and apartments (1,617).

As with cars, these figures only gain meaning in context.

According to State Statistics Service, in 2024, 118.4 thousand apartments were commissioned in Ukraine. Of these, 82.8 thousand were in multi-apartment buildings, and 35.65 thousand were in private buildings.

Based on the population estimate and the average household size (2.55 people), there are 6.6 apartments per a thousand families. For high-ranking officials, this number is 69 apartments.

On average, there are 1.1 houses per a thousand families across the country, while among top officials, there are 28 houses.

Apartments and houses per 1000 people

In practice, the gap could be even larger.

Ukrainian officials often register property and transport under the names of relatives not listed in declarations. An example is the head of the Antimonopoly Committee (AMCU) Pavlo Kyrylenko. As journalists from the "Schemes" project found out, much of his property belongs to the relatives of his wife, including elderly parents and grandmother.

In 2024, these persons owned a large estate, two plots of land near Kyiv, 200 square meters of office real estate in the capital, two crossovers, three apartments with parking spaces in elite residential complexes of Kyiv, and four apartments in Uzhhorod.

Income

When considering the income of declarants’ families, the total amount stated in 23 thousand declarations in 2024 was 25.2 billion UAH. Of this amount, 17 billion UAH was in salaries.

If distributed evenly monthly among each adult family member, it would amount to about 30 thousand UAH per person.

Of course, this is not enough for buying real estate or cars, so such purchases are usually made with savings or by selling raspberries.

Cars for three cents. How top officials manipulate declarations

High-ranking officials are more likely than average citizens to buy cars and real estate. How do they manage it?