The Odesa Regional Council did not spend any funds on media PR last year

Six regional councils in Ukraine, including those in Odesa and Kherson, did not spend any funds on media coverage in 2025.

The regional councils made this statement in response to inquiries from the Chesno Movement.

As the movement’s analysts noted, in total, Ukraine’s regional councils spent over 10 million hryvnias on covering their activities in 2025. Last year’s leader in these expenditures was the Poltava Regional Council, which allocated over 4.4 million hryvnias to media coverage of its activities. The Mykolaiv Regional Council took second place with expenditures of 1.27 million hryvnias, and the Sumy Regional Council came in third with over 800,000 hryvnias. 

The Chernihiv Regional Council spent the least on media—only 10 thousand hryvnias. Meanwhile, the Dnipropetrovsk, Zakarpattia, and Kyiv Regional Councils, as well as the Odesa and Kherson Regional Councils, reported that they did not allocate a single hryvnia for media coverage in 2025.

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PHOTO: Chesno

Experts note that the Mykolaiv Regional Council directed the most funds to the publication “MykVisti.” Articles published last December on the media outlet’s website that may have pertained to the regional council’s activities were labeled as press releases or official announcements. At the same time, the editorial staff continued to publish critical articles about the work of local authorities, which makes it possible to distinguish between paid content and editorial content.

In Sumy Oblast, by contrast, the regional council also distributed funds among several media outlets, but the majority of the money went to “Pivnich Media” Information Agency LLC. In December, the outlet’s YouTube channel featured not reports on session decisions or deputy committee resolutions, but videos of forums, conferences, roundtables, professional holiday greetings, and various public events attended by the regional council chair. No other council members appeared on air during the period under review. 

“Overall, the study showed that local government bodies have different understandings of what constitutes coverage of their activities. In some cases, it involves informing citizens about council decisions, the work of committees, and the council members themselves. In others, it involves showing officials’ participation in events, award ceremonies, or thematic forums—that is, the use of administrative resources to create a positive image for politicians,” Chesno noted.

Кирило Бойко