May 11, 2026, 12:45 p.m.
(ILLUSTRATION: AI)
The village of Lyubymivka, Kherson Oblast, is going to build a new radiation shelter for a school worth almost UAH 56 million. The contract was awarded without a tender to a Kyiv-based company that had previously been engaged primarily in electrical work and had no experience in building shelters.
This was reported by the Center for Public Investigations.
It is about the construction of a dual-purpose protective building with the functions of a radiation shelter on the territory of the Lyubymivske general secondary education institution of the Novovorontsov community. The total cost of the project is UAH 55.97 million, with the bulk of the funding planned to be received under the European program Ukraine Facility.
The tender was announced on April 16, 2026. The customer of the works was the educational institution itself. The project will be funded by a state subvention and the local budget. Of the total amount, more than UAH 54.3 million will be provided under the Ukraine Facility program, and more than UAH 1.5 million will be provided by the community.
The only bidder was Ukrspetsmontazh Trading and Installation Company LLC. The company offered to perform the works for UAH 55.96 million, which almost completely coincided with the expected procurement cost. It was this company that was chosen as the winner of the tender.
According to the tender documentation, the construction of the shelter is to be completed by December 25, 2027. The contractor was provided with an advance payment of 30% of the cost of the work, and the rest will be paid after the construction is completed.
According to the YouControl analytical system, the company was registered in Kyiv in 2012 with a registered capital of UAH 20 thousand. The company's main activity is electrical work. The company's owners are Victoria Lobintseva from Mariupol, Yaroslav Shakura from Zhytomyr region, and Oleksiy Marchuk from Cherkasy region.
Since 2017, the company has received a little over UAH 7 million in public procurement, mostly for electrical work. There are no examples in open data that the company has previously been involved in the construction of shelters. The most successful year for the company was 2021, when its revenue from government orders reached UAH 4.3 million.
Among the company's main customers were Donetsk Railways, Berdiansk Geriatric Nursing Home, and the state-owned enterprise Pivdenodonbasske No. 1 Mine Administration.
The YouControl system does not mention any criminal proceedings or high-profile journalistic investigations against the company. At the same time, it is noted that one of the co-owners, Viktoriia Lobintseva, is registered as a private entrepreneur with a type of activity in the field of hairdressing and beauty salons.
How the company, which specializes in electrical work and has earned more than UAH 7 million in 9 years, won a contract in Kherson region for almost UAH 56 million remains a question.
Also in April, more than UAH 250 million from the reserve fund was allocated to protect the critical infrastructure of the Kherson community - without open bidding and with one contractor for all facilities. The largest contracts were awarded to a company for which these projects provided more than half of all revenues.
Анна Бальчінос