Journalists from eight Ukrainian media outlets published a Slidstvo.Info investigation, the release of which a judge, Vovk, of the Pechersk District Court had banned for that outlet. The text was provided by journalist Maksym Savchuk, to whom the court ban does not apply. The investigation concerns the purchase of 143 apartments by the brother of the director of the State Bureau of Investigation.
Oleksandr Sukhachov, the brother of current SBI Director Oleksiy Sukhachov, was a sole proprietor in the real estate rental sector from 2007 to 2015. He also managed and intermittently held stakes in private companies and worked in the railway security service.
In 2018, according to the real estate rights register, Oleksandr Sukhachov became the owner of 40% of the units in a multi-apartment building in the IT-Park Manufactura residential complex in Kharkiv, at 13 Yuriy Chyhyryn Street, from the developer Stroi City. In 2018–2020, he became the owner of 143 units in two Kharkiv residential complexes that are listed as Stroi City properties.
In 2019, the price of one square meter in this complex was listed at an average of $800. But according to the documents, Sukhachov bought entire apartments for a price only slightly higher than the cost of a single square meter.
In July 2018, he signed two purchase-and-sale agreements for 30 apartments. The price was from 24,600 to 48,900 hryvnyas per apartment, i.e., $932–$1,856.
“For these 30 apartments, the brother of then Deputy Head of a department at the Prosecutor General’s Office, Oleksiy Sukhachov, paid a total of just over one million hryvnyas (at the time, $39,300). Two days later, Oleksandr Sukhachov repeated his success and bought another 28 apartments, spending less than $33,000. The cheapest cost 26,500 hryvnyas and the most expensive 38,700 hryvnyas,” the investigation says.
The seller was Parkovyi-2, the company that filed with the Pechersk District Court seeking to ban publication of the investigation. At the time of the apartment purchases in 2018, this LLC belonged to lawyer Ivan Kozikov, and it is now linked to Stroi City.
“This connection can be traced through Lyudmyla Ryabykh, the sister of the wife of Stroi City’s former owner, businessman Yehor Maslennikov. You may have heard of him because of the expensive Rolls-Royce that Ukrainska Pravda journalists spotted in Monte Carlo in December 2024. Oleksandr Sukhachov also bought 11 apartments directly from Maslennikov himself. And likewise for symbolic sums,” the investigation says.
In addition, according to the register of court decisions, in 2021, while investigating suspected illegal construction following an SBU report, National Police officers conducted searches at the developer’s offices and found seals of firms that belong or previously belonged directly to Oleksandr Sukhachov, as well as financial documentation of a company he owned. That same year, an investigation was opened against Stroi City. Law enforcement attention was drawn to unauthorised construction: the developer put up fences in the middle of Kharkiv, brought in excavators, and began building residential complexes. Among them were buildings in which Oleksandr Sukhachov later purchased property.
In December 2022, a Deputy Prosecutor General assigned the investigation to the SBI’s Main Investigative Department. For some time, the bureau handled a case involving a company allegedly linked to the brother of its head, but ultimately no one was charged, journalists say.
The company’s owner, Yehor Maslennikov, as Bihus.Info journalists reported, transferred his old construction business to his wife’s sister and opened a new one in Dubai. After that, the case regarding unauthorised construction that the SBI had been investigating ended up again with the Chernihiv Region police in August last year, where it was closed. The case was reopened after the people mentioned in this investigation received information requests from journalists.
As of now, Oleksandr Sukhachov has stopped owning almost all of the 143 apartments and offices. In response to journalists’ inquiry, the State Bureau of Investigation said that neither it nor its director has any information regarding Oleksandr Oleksandrovych Sukhachov’s involvement in any business activity, including with the developer Stroi City, or his acquisition of any real estate.
Asked about the pre-trial investigation into the developer’s actions, the SBI said it had not made a decision to close the case and emphasised that determining which agencies’ investigators conduct such an investigation falls within the prosecutor’s competence.