The Bizhko system: how the regional prosecutor turned the service into a business empire

The Bizhko system: how the regional prosecutor turned the service into a business empire

Serhiy Bizhko, the head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Prosecutor’s Office, who received a disability pension at the age of 46 during the war, continues to lead an active life, build a family business, and appoint friends and acquaintances to positions.

Despite his official status as a "disabled person," Bizhko freely travels abroad and managed to secure a monthly pension of 88,000 UAH through the court—60% of his salary without restrictions. In 2023, his total income amounted to almost 1.8 million UAH.

Officially, Bizhko does not own any cars, but he uses several of them, ranging from a Toyota Camry to a Volkswagen ID4. His elite real estate in the "Panorama" residential complex, with an area of 120 square meters, is registered under his mother’s name.

After the prosecutor’s rapid career rise, his wife’s business became more active—the company "Realtor 3D" began to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars. Among the co-owners is Svitlana Lozovska, presumably the mother of Bizhko’s acquaintance, Kyrylo Lozovskyi, who received an executive position in the Synelnykove prosecutor’s office under him. Under his leadership, the prosecutor’s office fleet was replenished with two new Toyota Land Cruisers, and maintenance costs increased significantly.

Another close associate of the prosecutor, Maksym Kudryavtsev, without relevant experience, became the deputy head of the department for combating organized crime.

The culmination was the SSU’s arrest of Bizhko’s acquaintance, lawyer and former prosecutor Oleksandr Samarets, who, according to the investigation, cooperated with the FSB and coordinated missile strikes on Dnipro. According to sources, Samarets was the "intermediary" in the prosecutor’s affairs.

This story raises acute questions for the newly appointed Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko: will there be inspections, cancellations of dubious pensions, and personnel cleansing? After all, the case of Bizhko is a symptom of not a personal but a systemic problem within the prosecutor’s office.