The High Anti-Corruption Court has begun hearing Shevchenko’s case concerning 206 million hryvnias from “Ukrgasbank”

This has been reported by Transparency International Ukraine.

The High Anti-Corruption Court has concluded the preliminary proceedings in the case concerning the alleged misappropriation of funds from the state-owned ‘Ukrgasbank’.

The sum in question is approximately 206 million hryvnias, which, according to the prosecution, were illegally withdrawn from the bank and subsequently laundered.

The case has now moved to the trial stage.

The first hearing on the merits took place on 1 May 2026.

According to the prosecution, in November 2014, officials at “Ukrgazbank” organised a scheme to siphon off funds.

According to the investigation, the scheme operated until March 2020.

During this period, the bank made over a thousand transfers to 52 so-called intermediaries.

The total amount of illegal expenditure, according to the prosecution, was approximately 206 million hryvnias.

The actions of those involved are classified under Articles 191, 255, 209 and 366 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

The classification depends on the role of each participant.

The investigation into this case began on 20 February 2019.

On 28 February 2025, the indictment against eight individuals was referred to the High Anti-Corruption Court.

On 30 May 2025, the court held its first preparatory hearing.

Exactly 11 months later, on 30 April 2026, the preparatory proceedings were concluded.

Who is involved in the case

There are currently seven defendants in the case.

According to the prosecution, Kirill Shevchenko was the leader of the criminal organisation.

He was previously the first deputy chairman of the board of Ukrgasbank, and later served as acting chairman and chairman of the bank’s board.

In 2020–2022, Shevchenko headed the National Bank of Ukraine.

Denis Chernyshov is a former adviser to the chairman of the board of Ukrgasbank.

He later became deputy chairman of the board under Kirill Shevchenko.

From 2016 to 2019, Chernyshov held the post of Deputy Minister of Justice of Ukraine.

Three fictitious partners of the bank also feature in the case.

These include former First Deputy Prosecutor General Mykola Herasyuk, who at the time also took part in the competition for the post of head of the SAPO.

In addition to him, the defendants include his wife, Kateryna Herasyuk, and the wife of Denys Chernyshov, Natalia Chernyshova.

Another defendant is Olena Khmelenko, the former head of one of the bank’s departments.

Dmytro Kozak, the former head of the Odesa regional directorate of “Ukrgasbank”, is also involved in the case.

Oleksiy Lyuty, a former head of a department at the bank, was previously also charged in the case.

The case against him has been separated into a separate proceeding, as he has entered into a plea bargain.

Why the case is important

“Ukrgasbank” is effectively a state-owned bank.

Almost 95% of its shares are owned by the Ukrainian state.

According to the investigation, the bank lost around 206 million hryvnias as a result of the scheme.

A total of 16 people were involved in the case.

Half of them entered into plea agreements during the investigation.

They agreed to provide incriminating testimony.

These individuals also reimbursed 35 million hryvnias in damages and transferred over 14.5 million hryvnias to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Of the remaining defendants, only Oleksiy Lyuty and, more recently, Dmytro Kozak appeared in court in person.

The others are abroad, notably in Vienna, and have been placed on an international wanted list.

During the court hearing, it emerged that prosecutors from the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office had filed motions for the detention and extradition arrest of these individuals.

However, the Austrian court refused to grant these requests.

The reason given for the refusal was the ongoing hostilities on Ukrainian territory.

According to the High Anti-Corruption Court, as of March 2025, one in eight cases is being heard in absentia, i.e. without the physical presence of the defendants, due to their hiding outside the country.

How the defendants ended up abroad

Kirill Shevchenko crossed the border between Ukraine and Poland in September 2022.

According to reports, he was allegedly travelling to London on a business trip, which later turned into a holiday.

Shevchenko did not return to Ukraine after that and is currently in Austria.

Shevchenko himself and his defence team attribute his stay abroad to political persecution.

For this reason, he has applied to the Austrian authorities for political asylum.

Shevchenko’s defence team presented the investigators with a letter from the relevant Austrian authorities stating that the procedure for granting political asylum is ongoing.

According to the defence, this is precisely why Shevchenko cannot return to Ukraine, as his passport was allegedly seized by the Austrian authorities for the purposes of this procedure.

Shevchenko later informed the court that in August he had received approval to work in Austria.

In September, he began working at an Austrian investment company as deputy head of investment affairs.

Shevchenko did not disclose the name of the company, explaining that he did not have his employer’s consent.

The prosecutor claims that Denis Chernyshov left the country at the same time as Shevchenko.

At one of the first hearings, Chernyshov filed a motion for adjournment, in which he explained his departure to Austria as an “active pro-Ukrainian stance”.

He also refused to return, citing inadequate conditions in the detention centre.

In particular, Chernyshov stated that prisoners are not taken out of the premises during air raid alerts, and he does not wish to put himself in danger.

The report notes that it was Chernyshov who was responsible for the prison service at the Ministry of Justice at the time.

The court found the arguments regarding a “pro-Ukrainian stance” to be dubious.

The court pointed out that Chernyshov had in fact left Ukraine, taking advantage of a civil servant’s leave with permission to travel abroad.

In correspondence with the prosecution, Chernyshov explained his reluctance to return by citing active hostilities, martial law and the alleged need for medical treatment abroad.

At one of the hearings, he stated that at the start of the full-scale invasion, he had travelled to Western Ukraine with Shevchenko.

According to him, he worked remotely from Uzhhorod.

From September 2022, Chernyshov was on leave, during which he travelled to Austria for his writing work, medical treatment and to bring his wife to Ukraine.

Subsequently, the couple decided against returning due to the escalation of hostilities.

Kateryna Herasyuk left Ukraine at the end of February 2022.

Natalia Chernyshova left the country in March 2022.

Olena Khmelenko left in May 2022.

Mykola Herasyuk left for Slovakia in January 2023 and currently lives with his wife in Austria.

Kirill Shevchenko, Denis Chernyshov and Olena Khmelenko were placed on an international wanted list on 28 October 2022.

Mykola and Kateryna Herasyuk, as well as Nataliia Chernyshova – on 26 April 2023.

Prosecutors requested that proceedings be conducted in absentia against them.

At that time, Dmytro Kozak was subject to neither a preventive measure nor a travel ban.

In January 2025, he travelled to Israel for medical treatment.

Currently, Kozak is the only one of these defendants to have returned to Ukraine.

Shevchenko’s statement on political persecution

Kyrylo Shevchenko claims that the case against him bears the hallmarks of political persecution.

During one of the hearings, which he joined via video link from abroad, Shevchenko claimed that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had allegedly blackmailed him.

According to him, he was allegedly pressured to write a letter of resignation from his post as head of the NBU of his own volition.

Shevchenko linked the political persecution to attempts to put pressure on the National Bank to secure corrupt benefits.

He claimed that since the start of the war, as head of the NBU, he had repeatedly thwarted attempts at illegal dealings in the procurement of weapons.

According to him, this did not sit well with the President’s Office.

Shevchenko believes that he was effectively ousted from his post so that Andriy Yermak’s godfather, Andriy Pyshny, could be appointed in his place.

At the same time, the NABU case began to be investigated back in 2019, that is, before Shevchenko was appointed head of the NBU.

The article notes that, for this reason, linking the case to a desire to remove him from this post seems strange, to say the least.

Shevchenko also stated that he began receiving threats following his speech at a hearing before High Anti-Corruption Court judge Andriy Bitsyuk.

At that hearing, he mentioned the names of Zelenskyy and the Head of the President’s Office, Andriy Yermak.

According to Shevchenko, because of these threats, he contacted the relevant authorities in Austria, who are currently investigating them.

What happened during the preparatory proceedings

The preparations for the trial were accompanied by a large number of motions and challenges.

The prosecutor and the defendant, Shevchenko, filed a challenge against one of the judges on the panel.

The reason was that, during the pre-trial investigation, she had considered the investigating judge’s self-recusal.

Later, the defence moved to challenge the entire panel because this judge had not been recused.

The defence also filed a challenge on the grounds that the court had allegedly ignored the defence counsel’s right to rest and had unjustifiably appointed another defence counsel.

Furthermore, the lawyers attempted to challenge the judges due to the approval of a plea agreement with one of the defendants – Oleksiy Lyutym.

The court rejected all these motions.

The defence also repeatedly sought the recusal of the prosecutors.

Among the reasons cited were the alleged disclosure of pre-trial investigation details in the media and the prosecutor’s refusal to allow the defence to examine the materials provided to them.

Another ground cited by the defence was an alleged conflict of interest on the part of the prosecutors.

This concerned proceedings at the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI), initiated following a complaint by Shevchenko and a ruling by the Pechersk Court regarding the prosecutor.

The prosecutor noted that she was unaware of such proceedings and was not biased, as she had not previously seen the defendants.

The High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) again rejected the defence’s request.

Due to the large number of defence lawyers, hearings were frequently disrupted or postponed.

Overall, preparations for the hearing on the merits proceeded slowly.

On 27 June 2025, one of the defence lawyers filed a motion with the Appeals Chamber of the High Anti-Corruption Court to transfer the proceedings from the High Anti-Corruption Court to the Solomyanskyi District Court of Kyiv.

He argued that the case did not fall within the jurisdiction of the High Anti-Corruption Court, as ‘Ukrgasbank’ was allegedly not a state-owned bank.

The Appeals Chamber of the High Anti-Corruption Court dismissed the motion and reached the opposite conclusion.

On 17 October 2025, the defence lawyer, acting on Mykola Herasyuk’s instructions, refused to defend him but continued to represent Kateryna Herasyuk.

The court appointed a lawyer from the free legal aid centre to represent Mykola Herasyuk.

However, the court could not immediately accept the defence lawyer’s withdrawal.

The Gerasyuk couple did not appear at the hearing, not even via video link, so it was not possible to confirm the defendant’s consent directly.

On 24 October 2025, the court identified grounds in the actions of one of Olena Khmelenko’s defence lawyers to refer the matter to the Qualification and Disciplinary Bar Commission.

Her other defence lawyer did not appear at the hearing at all and did not give any reasons.

Khmelienko herself had, at that point, dismissed her lawyers.

One of them, who was present at the hearing, decided that he no longer had the authority to act as her defence counsel.

However, the withdrawal had not been properly formalised, so the court was unable to accept it immediately.

Another defence lawyer described the court’s conduct as arbitrary and insisted on the immediate acceptance of the withdrawal.

In late November, a significant development in the case was the granting of the prosecutor’s motion to separate the materials concerning Oleksiy Lyutyi.

This occurred following his entering into a plea agreement.

On 27 February, the defence filed over 25 complaints against the actions of detectives and prosecutors.

The court refused to consider most of them at this stage.

This led to a series of challenges against the judges.

The court, for its part, attempted to impose strict rules and a tight schedule to prevent delays.

On the same day, the court re-initiated disciplinary proceedings against the lawyer due to the lack of internet and communication.

The court regarded this as a failure to organise her work properly.

On 30 April, the court finally managed to proceed to the examination of the case on its merits.

Following the preliminary hearing, the court dismissed almost all of the defence’s complaints and the prosecution’s motions.

Proceedings in absentia were permitted only in respect of Mykola and Kateryna Herasyuk.

As for Shevchenko, the Chernyshovs and Khmelenko, the court refused to allow proceedings in absentia, as they are participating in the hearings via video link.

What next

Following the conclusion of the preparatory hearing, the main stage will be the examination of the case on its merits.

The court must examine the investigation materials, establish the facts and assess the actions of the defendants.

It is important that the hearing takes place within a reasonable timeframe.

Any attempts to delay proceedings, should they continue, must be met with an appropriate procedural response.

A high-quality trial of corruption cases at the highest level is not merely a demand of society.

It is also a criterion taken into account in European integration processes.

The article notes that there is currently no sign of active progress on legislative changes that could positively impact the handling of high-level corruption cases in the High Anti-Corruption Court.

It is up to the government and MPs to determine whether Ukraine can move from limited progress to full compliance with EU requirements in this area of its commitments.

As reported by ThePublic, the High Anti-Corruption Court confiscated 8.3 million hryvnias from the family of the deputy chief of the Kyiv police.

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