On June 17, 2025, the HACC began considering the motion to impose an interim measure on developer Serhii Kopystyra. He is suspected of involvement in the illegal allocation of land in Kyiv for development projects involving high-ranking officials from the Ministry for Development of Communities and Territories.
The prosecutor requested that Kopystyra be taken into custody with the option of posting bail in the amount of UAH 400 million. She substantiated the motion by citing several risks to the criminal proceedings under the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine, including the likelihood that the suspect might attempt to evade trial.
During the hearing, new details emerged regarding a potential bribe for Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Chernyshov. According to investigators, Kopystyra and Tatarenko provided apartments at significant discounts to individuals designated by Chernyshov. For example, one apartment was sold for UAH 93,000 instead of its market value of UAH 2 million, and another for UAH 41,000 instead of UAH 1.3 million. The total value of these discounts is estimated at around UAH 14 million.
It also came to light that Kopystyra, through an adviser in the minister’s patronage service, gave Minister Chernyshov an undeclared improper benefit: the first volume of the Collected Works of H.S. Skovoroda, worth $1,000. This book was discovered during a search of Chernyshov’s premises on May 14, 2025.
Investigators believe that Serhii Kopystyra, together with top officials of the Ministry, implemented a scheme to illegally acquire land in Kyiv for a residential development. The land was transferred through a state-owned enterprise to a construction company, which was supposed to allocate part of the apartments to the state. The value of the land was artificially reduced nearly fivefold, which may have caused over UAH 1 billion in losses to the state.