A company director with a prior conviction for alcohol theft has been charged with embezzlement in connection with renovation work at a museum in the Kherson region

An investigation is underway in the Kherson region into embezzlement during the renovation of the local history museum in Vysokopil. Yuriy Lyakhovych, the director of the contracting company —who had previously been convicted of stealing alcohol—has been named as a suspect.

According to the investigation, in December 2023, the municipal institution “Vysokopil Local History Museum” entered into acontract with “Construction and Restoration” LLC for routine repairs to the museum building in Vysokopil. The cost of the work was 1.906 million hryvnias. The procurement was also published on the Prozorro system.

Investigators believe that on December 26, 2023, the company’s director used a forged certificate of completed construction work, which contained false information regarding the scope of work, materials used, and the cost of the work.

Specifically, this pertains to work on the roof, waterproofing, and the drainage system.

The following day, December 27, based on this certificate, funds were transferred to the contractor for the completed repairs.

A construction and technical inspection conducted in late 2025 determined that the actual scope of work performed did not correspond to that specified in the documents. According to the experts’ conclusion, the losses incurred by the museum exceed 408,000 hryvnias.

Yuriy Lyakhovych is charged with using a knowingly forged document (Part 4 of Article 358 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine) and embezzlement of budget funds through abuse of official position, committed under martial law (Part 4 of Article 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).

Intent identified the relevant tender in the Prozorro system. The tender concerned services for the routine repair of the museum building located at 53a Vyzvolyteliv Street, Vysokopillia, Beryslav District, Kherson Oblast. The building had been damaged as a result of armed aggression by the Russian Federation. The cost of the procurement amounted to over 1.9 million hryvnias.

Previously, the Center for Public Investigations had already reported on how Yuriy Lyakhovych’s firm was securing contracts worth millions for the reconstruction of the Kherson region.

It is also known that in 2019, Lyakhovych stole alcohol from a supermarket in Dnipro, for which he received a one-year suspended prison sentence. And in the summer of 2018, on Katerynoslavsky Boulevard in Dnipro, he engaged in behavior that patrol officers classified as petty hooliganism.

Ірина Глухова