The Supreme Anti-Corruption Court has scheduled a hearing in the case of confiscation of the apartment of Minister Koval's family: will this be only the first step?

The High Anti-Corruption Court will begin hearing the lawsuit of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office against the Minister of Agrarian Policy Vitaliy Koval and his mother-in-law on the confiscation of a part of an elite apartment in Kyiv on June 9. The court made such a decision on May 12, UNN writes.

The lawsuit concerns an apartment with a total area of over 170 m2 in an elite residential complex in Kyiv, registered in the name of the minister's mother-in-law, which was actually used by his family. Only a part of this property, which the SAP demands to be recovered in favor of the state (53.33%), costs more than 9.3 million hryvnias.

According to prosecutors, the sources of funds for the purchase of this property have not been confirmed, and the explanations provided about the alleged loan of almost UAH 5.5 million have been refuted.

Despite the fact that the object of the lawsuit is a specific apartment in Kyiv, this story may be only the first signal for a deeper investigation - not only of the minister himself, his income and activities, but also of his closest circle, which has been working with him in the same team for years.

It is worth noting that one of the key figures in the "personnel vertical" built by Vitaliy Koval is acting Head of the State Property Fund Ivanna Smachylo. She is a long-time associate of Koval, who worked with him at the Rivne Regional State Administration. In 2023, Koval, having headed the State Property Fund, appointed Smachylo as his deputy. When in 2024 he moved to the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, Smachylo, without competition, received the position of Acting Head of the Fund. Her appointment looks not like a rotation of personnel, but as a conscious transfer of control over assets to "her own people."

Currently, Smachylo is in charge of one of the largest projects related to state land - the "Land Bank". Its essence is the seizure of thousands of hectares of land from state institutions, their transfer for lease and thus filling the state budget. It is significant that recently the Acting Head of the State Property Fund admitted that a significant part of the land transferred in the first pool is idle. Despite this, the State Property Fund wants to receive more than 135 thousand hectares of agricultural land of the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences under its jurisdiction. These plans caused a sharp reaction from the Verkhovna Rada's agrarian committee, deputies and the scientific community. 

It is important to bring the apartment case to the end. But it is even more important not to stop at it alone. Because if one family of an official can afford to purchase an object for hundreds of thousands of dollars without declared funds, then a completely logical question arises: what about the property of other members of Koval's "Rivne vertical"? Otherwise, the assets of the state may disappear unnoticed behind an elite apartment.