A former official from Kakhovka embezzled funds from the district administration

A former official from the Kherson region was sentenced for collaboration. Prior to the occupation, she was implicated in a scandal involving irregularities in the procurement of food for kindergartens in Kakhovka.

This was reported by the Center for Public Investigations.

According to the investigation, in August 2023, Natalia Shcherbak agreed to head the so-called “Kakhovka Territorial Election Commission,” established by the Russian Federation’s occupation administration. She organized the preparation and conduct of sham elections to the illegal “Council of Deputies”: she issued credentials to members of precinct commissions, compiled voter rolls, certified the voting results, and participated in the first meeting of the occupying body.

The judge concluded that her guilt was confirmed by documents from the occupying “electoral commissions,” video recordings, materials from public online sources, eyewitness testimony, and the results of facial recognition analyses that identified Shcherbak in the recordings.

She was sentenced in absentia to 10 years of imprisonment with confiscation of property. She had been charged with collaboration as early as July 18, 2024.

According to the Center for Investigative Journalism, prior to the full-scale invasion, Shcherbak worked in public procurement at the Education Department of the Kakhovka City Council and was implicated in a scandal involving violations during tenders for food supplies. Journalists reported that this led to disruptions in food supplies at kindergartens, where children were, among other things, given expired milk.

After the outbreak of the full-scale war, she headed the finance department of the Beryslav District State Administration. According to media reports, one of her first tasks was to transport Russian rubles to districts across the region for delivery to the Gauleiters.

Serhiy Suvorov, the former head of the State Environmental Inspection of Kherson Oblast, willalso standtrial for aiding the Russian Federation. He helped the occupiers seize the property of state institutions and transferred agricultural equipment to them.

Анна Бальчінос