An investigation by Slidstvo.Info found that the parents of Odesa judge Dmytro Tishko held millions of rubles in Russian banks that operate in occupied Crimea and are under international sanctions.
The findings were published in a new Slidstvo.Info investigation titled Millions in Russian banks, a house by the sea: A judge from Odesa and his Crimean relatives.
Using Russian databases, journalists found that in 2021, the judge’s parents, the Tishko couple, held 2.6 million rubles in Russian bank accounts, or roughly $35,277 at the exchange rate at the time. In 2022, that amount rose to 7.3 million rubles, or $104,443. In 2023, it was 5.8 million rubles, or $67,761, and in 2024, another 5 million rubles, or $53,830.
The information on the multimillion-ruble savings obtained by journalists was current as of early 2025. Reporters said they were unable to reach the Tishko couple to ask how much money is currently kept in Russian banks, or whether the funds are still there.
At the same time, the judge’s parents’ official income does not appear to match the sums found in the accounts. According to Russian databases, the judge’s father, Anatoliy Tishko, worked after the annexation of Crimea as a section chief in the transport department of the municipal enterprise ZhylservisKerch and received a salary from a company controlled by the occupation authorities.
According to data from the Russian tax service, his monthly salary in recent years may have been about $677 equivalent in rubles. The judge’s mother is a retiree who previously worked as a janitor.
“They are retirees and never worked in any occupation authorities,” Dmytro Tishko told Slidstvo.Info when asked about his parents.
He did not answer follow-up questions from reporters about his parents’ accounts in Russian banks.
Tishko recently underwent an interview for a position at the Odesa Court of Appeal but did not pass. The High Qualification Commission of Judges found that Judge Tishko had “not confirmed the ability to administer justice in a general court of appeal.”
The judge had previously appeared in several high-profile cases. While working at the Central District Court of Mykolaiv, he commuted Kostiantyn Kovaliov’s pre-trial restriction to house arrest. Kovaliov was suspected of treason and preparing an armed seizure of the Mykolaiv Oblast State Administration building. According to investigators, Kovaliov and a group of accomplices were planning an “armed attack” on May 9, but the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) stopped it. After the court’s decision, the suspect fled house arrest and joined militants in the occupied territories.
Another case involved property tied to the family of Russian General Mikhail Dmitriev, a former deputy defense minister of the Russian Federation and former board member of Tactical Missiles Corporation. In June 2024, law enforcement officials requested that a two-story penthouse in Odesa, valued at about $1.5 million and owned by the Dmitriev family, be transferred to the Asset Recovery and Management Agency (ARMA).
Tishko placed the property under arrest but refused to transfer it to ARMA, citing flaws in the motion. Only several months later, after public media criticism of the decision, did Tishko transfer the property to the agency.
“Perhaps this was a kind of conditional flirtation with representatives of the Russian Federation,” Eleonora Yemets, a member of the Public Integrity Council who studied Tishko’s work, told Slidstvo.Info in comments about the judge’s decision in the Dmitriev case.
The Public Integrity Council also raised questions about a house by the sea that the judge’s wife bought shortly after the ruling in the case involving the Russian general. According to the council’s assessment, the value listed in the documents for the house and land plot — about $190,000 — may have been substantially below market value. The council estimated the property’s real value at between $832,000 and nearly $1 million.
