The Cabinet of Ministers has adopted a number of personnel decisions, making appointments to the leadership of the State Agency for Exclusion Zone Management, dismissing officials from the liquidated Gambling and Lottery Regulatory Commission and approving the appointment of several regional officials, Taras Melnychuk, the government's representative in parliament, said on Friday in Telegram, UNN writes.
Details
According to Melnychuk, the government:
- appointed Oleksiy Budyk as Deputy Head of the State Agency of Ukraine for the Management of the Exclusion Zone;
- dismissed Oleksiy Botezat, Olena Vodolazhko, Khrystyna Dutka, Anna Sdobnova from the posts of members of the Commission for Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries.
Also, according to Melnychuk, the government approved the appointment of:
- Volodymyr Kolosov as Head of the Pokrovsk RDA of Donetsk region;
- Oleksandr Kukuruza as Head of the Voznesensk RDA of Mykolaiv region;
- Maksym Stoliarchuk as Deputy Head of the Kyiv Regional State Administration on Digital Development, Digital Transformation and Digitalization.
Addition
The government liquidated the Commission for Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries on March 25. According to the decision, from April 1, 2025, CRAIL ceased its activities.
In February, the Cabinet assigned the functions of ensuring the formation and implementation of state policy in the field of organization and conduct of gambling and lottery to the Ministry of Digital Development instead of the liquidated CRAIL. At the same time, part of the budget allocations provided for CRAIL for 2025, in the amount of UAH 14 million 347.9 thousand, was transferred.
Prior to that, in December, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a law that provided for the liquidation of CRAIL from April 1, 2025, the creation of a new body, increased responsibility for gambling organizers, and a ban on gambling advertising. According to the draft law, it was envisaged to create a "central executive body that ensures the formation and implementation of state policy in the field of organization and conduct of gambling and lottery, as well as the authorized body within their powers defined by the Constitution and laws of Ukraine".
In January, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed Law No. 9256-d on the liquidation of CRAIL from April 1, 2025.
The Chairman of the Commission for Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries, Ivan Rudyi, was detained in 2024 for supporting the activities of an online casino from the Russian Federation in Ukraine. The court sent Rudyi to a pre-trial detention center without the right to bail.
Let's add
UNN drew attention to the inaction of CRAIL in 2022 in the context of another Russian casino 1Xbet, which tried to operate in Ukraine through LLC "Your Betting Company" and which CRAIL issued a license. At that time, the Commission stubbornly did not see Russian connections.
And only after the personal intervention of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Bureau of Economic Security finally canceled permits to work in Ukraine.
In 2023, 1Xbet fell under sanctions.