The Arsenal plant, a building in Kyiv’s historic centre, and the Ukrhydroenergobud Research and Production Association Consortium were among the assets that, according to investigators, former MP Maksym Mykytas and current MP Vadym Stolar planned to take control of.
According to law enforcement officials, the two men entered into an informal agreement under which they agreed in advance to split future profits equally, and also enlisted officials from the Office of the President and the Ministry of Justice.
Slidstvo.Info examined how, according to investigators, this asset-raiding scheme operated.
The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) uncovered a criminal organisation allegedly led by former MP and businessman Maksym Mykytas and current MP Vadym Stolar which, according to investigators, was engaged in corporate raiding in Kyiv. The operation was codenamed “Femida”.
According to the criminal case materials, which SAPO prosecutor Vitalii Rybalkin read out during a court hearing, Mykytas and Stolar entered into an “informal agreement” in 2024, under which they agreed in advance to divide the assets and future profits from their joint “projects” equally.
According to investigators, Stolar contributed almost UAH 1.5 million to the “project” and lent Mykytas more than UAH 816,000. Mykytas contributed a further UAH 1.01 million.
According to SAPO, the “informal agreement” contained a provisional list of assets that the organisers of the scheme planned to bring under their control.
In April 2025, those involved signed an additional agreement to finance the legal proceedings required to gain control of the companies and their assets.
‘We’re basically fighting for Arsenal’
According to a prosecutor from the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), one of the assets Maksym Mykytas and Vadym Stolar allegedly sought to take control of was Kyiv’s Arsenal. In one of the recorded conversations quoted in court, the former MP says: ‘We’re basically fighting for Arsenal.’
Those involved planned to obtain the asset through Filosofiia Development, the company that had owned the property complex for many years.
According to investigators, the ‘takeover’ of the company began in October 2025. Law enforcement officials allege that hackers hired by Mykytas and Stolar broke into the account of state registrar Kachkovska and entered a forged deed transferring corporate rights into the Unified State Register. The document replaced the owner, Antonina Bartash, with Uzbek national Kayumjon Samatov.
Investigators allege that a private notary later used the same scheme to transfer ownership of Filosofiia Development from Samatov to Mykytas’s driver, Yehor Merkulov.
According to investigators, to prevent Bartash from regaining control of the company, those involved arranged for the Pechersk District Court to freeze its corporate rights.
When Bartash filed a complaint with the Ministry of Justice, Merkulov, acting on Mykytas’s instructions, filed one as well.
On 31 December 2025, the Ministry of Justice ruled that the transfer of the company from Bartash to Samatov had been unlawful, but left the subsequent transfer from Samatov to Merkulov in place. As a result, Merkulov remained listed in the register as the company’s sole owner.
According to investigators, former Deputy Head of the Office of the President Iryna Mudra helped facilitate this decision.
She reached an agreement with Deputy Minister of Justice Olena Ferens.
‘Olena [Ferens] and I are just working out the details for Monday. The outcome will be that this Merkulov becomes the 100% owner, and that’s it,’ Mudra told Mykytas on 26 December 2025.
The prosecutor stressed that those involved in the scheme knew they were acting unlawfully. As evidence, he read out an exchange between Mudra and Mykytas that had taken place the previous day:
Mudra: You do realise this is illegal, right?
Mykytas: Well, of course.
Prosecutor Vitalii Rybalkin said the hackers had made a technical error: they had failed to record in the Unified State Register that Merkulov was not only the owner but also the director of Filosofiia Development. This prevented those involved from gaining full control of the company, as Ihor Nelha legally remained its director.
According to the prosecutor, to resolve the problem, members of the group decided to initiate bankruptcy proceedings against Filosofiia Development.
Investigators allege that businessman Vasyl Astion arranged for Kyiv Commercial Court judge Serhii Stasiuk to issue the required ruling.
In one of the conversations read out by the prosecutor during the court hearing, Astion reported back to Mykytas about a meeting with Stasiuk, whom he described as the judge ‘handling Filosofiia’.
The prosecutor also said that, while discussing how to remove Nelha, the company’s lawful director, the judge suggested summoning him to a hearing and asking him a set of pre-prepared, humiliating questions. If Nelha failed to appear, his absence could be treated as contempt of court and he could then be removed at a second hearing.
In March 2026, the Kyiv Commercial Court terminated Nelha’s authority as director and assigned his duties to insolvency practitioner Serhii Lytvynenko, who, according to investigators, was under Mykytas’s control.
Ultimately, according to prosecutor Rybalkin, Mykytas and Stolar redistributed the assets in May 2026, during which Mykytas instructed their associate Valentyn Yelizarov to ensure that Filosofiia Development remained under his control.
‘We need to take control of the Consortium’
During a search, law enforcement officers found a plan on former MP Maksym Mykytas’s laptop outlining how to gain control of the Ukrhydroenergobud Consortium. According to prosecutor Rybalkin, the company holds substantial government contracts and receives regular funding from the state budget.
According to investigators, the file, entitled ‘Consortium’, stated that Budmontazhservis 1 LLC was to serve as the main legal vehicle for gaining control of the company.
In September 2024, the Kyiv Commercial Court ordered the Consortium to pay Budmontazhservis 1 around UAH 61 million in outstanding debt. With inflation adjustments and penalties, the amount had risen to UAH 115 million.
According to the prosecutor, those involved intended to gain control of Budmontazhservis 1 and, consequently, acquire the right to recover the debt owed by the Consortium.
According to investigators, the takeover of the corporate rights in Budmontazhservis 1 was carried out at the same time and in the same manner as the takeover of Filosofiia Development.
Prosecutor Rybalkin alleges that, with the help of hackers, the company was first transferred from its rightful owner, Oleksandr Shevchuk, to a foreign national and then to Mykytas’s security guard, Oleksandr Ostapenko. The Pechersk District Court of Kyiv subsequently froze the corporate rights in Budmontazhservis 1 LLC.
According to investigators, Mykytas instructed businessman Valentyn Yelizarov to ‘manufacture’ a debt owed to a company under their control: ‘Take some legal entity and let’s “manufacture” this debt. Let’s “manufacture” the debt quickly so that we can file for insolvency on Monday.’
To do this, prosecutors allege, Ostapenko, acting on behalf of Budmontazhservis 1, entered into a sham agreement with Alfa Met Plus LLC for the provision of ‘consultancy services’, after which the companies signed a purported certificate of completed works.
According to investigators, the fictitious debt would allow Alfa Met Plus to apply to the Kyiv Commercial Court to have bankruptcy proceedings opened against Budmontazhservis 1.
‘Vasia [Vasyl Astion] promised me on Friday that he’d start the bankruptcy proceedings on the fourth. We created a debt there. So, we’ve got 115 million from Budmontazhservis 1, we’ve got 362 million that was sent for expert assessment today, we’ve got 35 million, 32… 58.5 million, and another 45 million now,’ Mykytas told Stolar. He then added: ‘And we also need to take control of the Consortium — that’s 600 million we’ve got on the table right now.’
In March 2026, the Prosecutor General’s Office opened criminal proceedings against Vadym Stolar over the alleged misappropriation of the company’s assets. After the MP learnt of the investigation, he ‘ordered that all unlawful actions’ concerning Budmontazhservis 1 be stopped.
Ultimately, according to the prosecutor, the applications filed by Alfa Met Plus to initiate what he described as sham bankruptcy proceedings were withdrawn.
‘We’ll immediately transfer “Pushkinska” back to Ukrbud’
Among the tentative list of joint ‘projects’ pursued by Mykytas and Stolar under their informal ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ was a property referred to as ‘Pushkinska, 1a’. According to the prosecutor, this is a building on Chykalenka Street (formerly Pushkinska Street) in central Kyiv, owned by the company Regional Resources.
Vitalii Rybalkin said that those involved initially attempted to take control of the property by using Iryna Mudra’s alleged influence over the Ministry of Justice, which issued an order cancelling the lawful owners’ title to the property.
However, representatives of Regional Resources LLC challenged the order in court, and Judge Narizhnyi overturned it in full. The ruling was upheld on appeal.
According to investigators, in May 2026 those involved in the scheme decided to use hackers to conceal Judge Narizhnyi’s ruling in the court register and create a forged ruling lifting the interim measures:
Mykytas: Yes, it can be done there in a single hearing, just one… And then we immediately transfer the Pushkinska back to Ukrbud.
Mykytas: Yes, this order basically overturns the entire decision on the basis of which the order was issued. It would even be enough for us just to send it back to the first-instance court. Either way, the first instance will do as well.
Mudra: And then what?
Mykytas: Then I can simply transfer [the building on Chykalenka (formerly Pushkinska) Street — ed.] from Regional Resources to Ukrbud, because they’ll immediately transfer it back in exactly the same way on the basis of that court ruling.
According to the prosecutor, Viktor Dubovyk, Director General of the Legal Policy Department at the Office of the President, helped those involved prepare the forged court ruling:
Dubovyk: No, look, that’s not how it needs to be done. If you’re going to do something like this, you need to prepare a document that you can upload there [to the register — ed.] and that looks genuine, so that later, if anyone starts poking around…
Mykytas: Right, given the situation we’re already in, let’s do this: I’ll send you the order. We’ve got people who can make things ‘disappear’. That’s how it was done recently, even the last time we were fighting over this.
According to the SAPO prosecutor, businessman Valentyn Yelizarov prepared the forged court ruling. He reported back to Mykytas on the progress of drafting it: ‘While I was on my way, I’d already sent over the substance of it… We’ll have one ground for overturning [the decision]… I promise you it’ll be “drawn up” by tomorrow, because we still need to type it up and cut and paste this blot [the seal].’
Mykytas also asked Vasyl Astion for a copy of Judge Narizhnyi’s signature: ‘Give me a copy of your mate’s signature… your best mate’s… I’m making his injunctions “disappear”.’
According to investigators, once the forged ruling bearing Judge Narizhnyi’s name was ready and the genuine ruling had been ‘hidden’, those involved in the scheme submitted an application to the Ministry of Justice seeking to have the property transferred from Regional Systems LLC to Ukrbud Development, a company controlled by Mykytas.
However, Deputy Minister of Justice Olena Ferens and Ihor Ponochovnyi, head of the Anti-Raiding Office, refused to register the transfer.
The SAPO prosecutor quoted an exchange between Mykytas and Mudra that followed:
Mudra: Do you realise what I wrote to her [Olena Ferens — ed.]? I’ve just incriminated myself! You didn’t tell me the ruling was fake!
Mykytas: I told you 150 times!
According to the prosecutor, Mudra also gave Mykytas the go-ahead to ‘go after’ Ferens: ‘Put everything you’ve got on her out there. And get Ponochovnyi out of the way too.’
Investigators found that shortly afterwards, the Telegram channel Femida Prozrivaie (‘Themis Sees the Light’) resumed activity. The channel had been put up for sale shortly before.
‘On 8 May — the very day Olena Ferens refused to join the alleged conspiracy with members of the criminal organisation — a post appeared announcing a “comeback”. The channel subsequently began publishing negative material about Ferens and Ponochovnyi,’ prosecutor Vitalii Rybalkin said.
According to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), the assets of Filosofiia Development and Budmontazhservis 1, which members of the alleged scheme took control of in autumn 2025, were worth UAH 248 million. The property owned by the two companies is valued at more than UAH 500 million.
On 21 August, the High Anti-Corruption Court imposed pre-trial measures on former MP Maksym Mykytas, his ‘trusted associate’ Valentyn Yelizarov and Viktor Dubovyk, Director General of the Legal Policy Department at the Office of the President. All three were remanded in custody, with bail set at UAH 30 million, UAH 20 million and UAH 7 million, respectively.
Iryna Mudra, who is also a suspect in the case, was not subjected to a pre-trial measure on 21 August. The hearing was adjourned until 24 August.
