The court is not a decree: how ARMA, under the leadership of Duma, demonstrates disregard for the law

The head of the Asset Recovery and Management Agency, Olena Duma, publicly positions herself as a leader of anti-corruption transformation. However, in practice, she selectively executes even court decisions - if it does not contradict her personal interests, writes UNN.

Details

One example of when ARMA selectively responds to court decisions is the case of the former head of the Central Interregional Territorial Department of ARMA, Vladislav Romanov. While in office, he repeatedly publicly stated the facts of violation of the law by Olena Duma's team and the influence on the agency of the "gray cardinal" - freelance advisor Vadym Grona. As Romanov himself stated, he was fired from ARMA precisely after refusing to fulfill Grona's instructions, and was also accused of official violations and corruption. 

In February 2025, the Kyiv District Administrative Court recognized Romanov's dismissal as illegal and ordered ARMA to reinstate him. But this decision was never implemented. In addition, recently the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv recognized the accusations spread by ARMA against Romanov as unreliable and unfounded. However, there was also no reaction from Olena Duma and her team to this decision.

This decision creates a precedent and clearly illustrates that for Duma and her team, lying is as common and normal as a cup of tea for breakfast 

This case is indicative for understanding how the "vertical" is arranged in ARMA today. If an employee is "inconvenient" - he is fired. If he tries to defend his rights - he is discredited. If the court makes a decision - it is simply ignored. 

According to Transparency International, Olena Duma's leadership in ARMA for a short period became the reason for the fall of anti-corruption ratings of Ukraine. Moreover, the implementation of the Ukraine-EU Ukraine Facility plan to reform ARMA by the end of March 2025 has been failed, which threatens the receipt of billions of euros of aid. 

Against this background, the criticism from the head of the anti-corruption committee of the Verkhovna Rada, Anastasia Radina, is gaining even more weight. She openly stated that maintaining a constructive dialogue with ARMA is constantly complicated by manipulations. The head of the committee cited three examples that demonstrate how the agency distorts data about its activities. Radina cited as one of them the case when the anti-corruption committee turned to ARMA with a question about how many assets they have and how many of them have been transferred to management? The agency reported that there are 69,000 assets in the register, and 36,000 have been transferred to management, i.e. about 47%. However, a detailed analysis revealed that 20,000 of these 36,000 assets are movable property of Mezhyhiria, including bottles of wine, furniture and documents, which have no independent economic value.

In response, the head of ARMA, Olena Duma, called on the deputy to "analyze the information".

Later, Anastasia Radina published an analysis of ARMA's work under Duma's leadership and noted that in a year and a half in office, she concluded only seven contracts that brought income as of the end of 2024. 

In addition, according to information from the head of the anti-corruption committee, despite the presence of dozens of arrested commercial objects in the portfolio of the Asset Recovery and Management Agency, most of the income to the state in 2024 was provided by two state-owned enterprises, and not by competitions held by ARMA.