Misappropriation of 15 million UAH on a school shelter: a village council head and an engineer will be tried in Bukovina

 Instead of reliable protection for schoolchildren during air raids - millions in losses. In the Chernivtsi district, during the construction of an anti-radiation shelter with a gym, over 15 million UAH was groundlessly paid from the budget.

Detectives of the Territorial Office of the ESBU in the Chernivtsi region completed the pretrial investigation and sent the indictment regarding the head of one of the village councils and a technical supervision engineer to court.

The investigation established that the village council signed a contract with a contractor for the construction of an anti-radiation shelter with a gym for an educational institution with a total value of over 35 million UAH. A technical supervision engineer was involved to control the execution of the works.

During 2024–2025, works that were actually not performed were entered into the acceptance acts. The technical supervision engineer approved the relevant documents, and the head of the village council certified them. On the basis of these acts, budget funds were transferred to the contractor.

According to the conclusions of expert examinations, the cost of the actually unperformed works amounts to over 15 million UAH.

The suspects are charged with misappropriation of property on an especially large scale and official forgery, committed by prior conspiracy by a group of persons under martial law (Part 5 of Article 191, Part 2 of Article 28, Part 1 of Article 366 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).

Earlier, the court selected preventive measures for them in the form of bail—nearly 500 thousand UAH for the head of the village council and over 260,000 UAH for the technical supervision engineer.

Operational support is carried out by employees of the Department of the SSU in the Chernivtsi region.

Procedural guidance is provided by the Chernivtsi Regional Prosecutor's Office.

Note that according to Article 62 of the Constitution of Ukraine, a person is considered innocent of committing a crime and cannot be subjected to criminal punishment until their guilt is proven in accordance with the law and established by a court verdict.