State Biotechnological University under the control of a bribe-taker: embezzlement of state lands and millions from a “shadow harvest.” Part 2
Kyiv • UNN
The State Biotechnological University in Kharkiv has been transformed into a private agricultural holding operating on state lands under the leadership of former and current officials controlled by Andriy Odarchenko, a Member of Parliament convicted of bribery. Due to shadow schemes involving harvest and land lease, the state budget has lost approximately UAH 100 million.
Under the guise of slogans about higher education reform and "optimization of the university network" in Kharkiv, a private agricultural holding has effectively been created, operating on state lands. Its leaders are former and current officials of the State Biotechnological University (SBTU), controlled by Andriy Odarchenko, a Member of Parliament convicted of bribery. Under his leadership, university fields have become a source of shadow profits, and the state budget is missing out on a colossal UAH 100 million. Read more in the second part of UNN's investigation into the corruption schemes organized at the university.
From university to private agricultural holding
The State Biotechnological University was established in 2021 by merging four agricultural universities under the pretext of optimizing the network of higher education institutions in Kharkiv. This initiative was put forward by People's Deputy Andriy Odarchenko, who was later, in 2025, finally sentenced to 8 years in prison for bribery.
As UNN already reported in the first part of the investigation, through falsifications and the use of administrative resources, Odarchenko won the university elections and was elected rector of the university. However, immediately after signing the relevant contract with him, the Ministry of Education and Science suspended the document's validity so that Odarchenko could avoid prosecution by the National Agency for Corruption Prevention, as legislation prohibits current MPs from combining paid positions.
Thus, Odarchenko is still formally the rector of SBTU, even despite the court's guilty verdict. In order not to lose influence over the university and access to the state treasury, from the moment the university was founded, the bribed MP lobbied for people under his control to be appointed as acting rectors. Initially, Ruslan Tikhonchenko was the acting rector, who, by the way, fled to Germany due to a criminal case in Ukraine, and later Andriy Kudryashov replaced him in this position. Both have close ties to the MP and are completely under his control.
The appointment of "his own" people to leadership positions at SBTU allowed Odarchenko and his team to gain access to unprecedented resources: dozens of buildings in Kharkiv and the region, as well as in Mukachevo and Uzhhorod in Zakarpattia Oblast, where the university administration relocated, over 4,200 hectares of arable land, and about 8,000 hectares of forest land.
After all, four powerful agricultural universities joined the university:
- Kharkiv National Technical University of Agriculture named after P. Vasylenko;
- Kharkiv National Agrarian University named after V.V. Dokuchaiev;
- Kharkiv State Zooveterinary Academy;
- Kharkiv State University of Food Technology and Trade.
Together, they were supposed to create an "educational cluster of the future." But under Odarchenko's management, SBTU quickly turned into an agribusiness with land and harvest schemes.
State land - private business
The mentioned 4.2 thousand hectares of land and 8 thousand hectares of forest land belonging to educational farms were supposed to be used for practical training of agricultural students. But, as it turned out, most of the university's land fund was actually leased to private structures under the guise of "joint activities" or "soil cultivation."
For example, about 1,800 hectares of land of the Kharkiv National Agrarian University named after V.V. Dokuchaiev were cultivated by RV Agro LLC in 2021-2022.
The head, founder, and beneficiary of this enterprise is Volodymyr Romashchenko. According to the analytical platform Youcontrol, this LLC is currently unprofitable. In addition, its head previously resorted to tax fraud, which led to the Kharkiv District Court hearing the relevant case No. 635/2446/21.
According to the data of the Unified Register of Court Decisions, RV Agro LLC has a long history of litigation over land with the state enterprise "Experimental Farm "Borky" of the Institute of Vegetable and Melon Growing of the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences of Ukraine." So, obviously, land fraud was a common practice for the entrepreneur.
Another 1,677 hectares of the Kharkiv State Zooveterinary Academy were cultivated by private LLC "Agrozoovet" and the farm "Zori Derhachivshchyny."
By the way, the Kharkiv OVA sued the latter for the return of land for its use for defense purposes.
Among the founders of the farm "Zori Derhachivshchyny" are Anton and Olesya Ohiienko. Anton Ohiienko ran for the Kharkiv District Council from the "Servant of the People" party. As is known, Odarchenko was elected People's Deputy of the 9th convocation in 2019 in constituency 170 (Kharkiv) from the "Servant of the People" party.
It should be noted that Anton Ohiienko in 2018 applied for the position of the first deputy director of the Territorial Department of the State Bureau of Investigation, located in Poltava, which he indicated in his declaration.
Agreements with these enterprises were formalized as "joint cultivation," but, in fact, the land was secretly leased to private firms. The income, however, settled in the pockets of the SBTU leadership. This is a classic land scheme that has "burned" more than one official from the agricultural sector.
200 thousand dollars from wheat and 80 million hryvnias "into nowhere"
According to UNN sources at the state university, in 2021 alone, Odarchenko, together with the then acting rector Roman Tykhonchenko, earned over 200 thousand dollars from schemes involving understating winter wheat yield indicators.
Of the expected UAH 23 million in revenue to the university's special fund, only UAH 1.5 million was officially received. The rest, apparently, "got lost" between fictitious acts, double accounting of yields, and "technical errors" in reports.
Despite Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the brief occupation of part of Kharkiv region, in 2022-2023, the schemes for earning from land lease and yield indicators, according to interlocutors, were continued by the new acting rector of SBTU, Andriy Kudryashov, who is also controlled by Odarchenko. After taking office, he extended the validity of contracts with the mentioned enterprises. Already during martial law, the university underreceived about UAH 80 million due to the illegal use of its fields, mainly for sunflower crops, which is considered the most profitable crop on the agricultural market.
"Own" elevators, trade with Russia, and "black accounting"
The harvest collected from university lands, the SBTU leadership, apparently on Odarchenko's instructions, placed in elevators belonging to the agricultural company "Agronova" of businessman Serhiy Polumysny, who has a dubious reputation. According to media reports, his companies exported Ukrainian harvest to Russia after the start of the full-scale invasion.
Another part of the grain was stored in university warehouses that became part of SBTU. But, as reported by SBTU, the amount of this harvest in university warehouses mysteriously decreased.
As UNN sources report, Odarchenko's team kept harvest records in several versions, obviously referring to so-called "black accounting." The official version of the documents indicated minimal yield indicators, while others showed real ones. According to the sources, the management signed all documents "retroactively." That is, in fact, it is about official forgery of documents and systematic appropriation of state property for personal enrichment.
Formally, the university operates and an educational process takes place there, but in reality, a significant part of the educational and research farms has turned into a source of private income for the university's leadership. It is interesting that despite obvious facts of abuse, the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine has not yet initiated an audit of SBTU's activities and a change of its leadership. In particular, the contract with the bribed MP Odarchenko has not yet been terminated, and his people continue to destroy the institution.
In addition, in the current situation, the intervention of law enforcement agencies is clearly needed to stop the plunder of the state budget. Therefore, UNN will, for its part, send relevant journalistic inquiries to the Bureau of Economic Security and the Prosecutor General's Office to stop the destruction of one of the country's largest agricultural universities.