The Regional State Administration has not commented on reports of Kipper's dismissal

On September 8, reports emerged that Oleg Kipper, head of the Odesa Regional Military Administration, had submitted his resignation, but the military administration itself has not commented on this information. 

According to Oleksiy Goncharenko, a member of parliament from Odesa,Kipper submitted his resignation as head of the Odesa Regional Military Administration.

<picture></picture>Screenshot of MP Goncharenko’s post

This occurred amid a joint special operation by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) to expose a criminal organization led by Serhiy Kropiva, an official with the Office of the Prosecutor General who had previously served as Kipper’s deputy.

Intent attempted to obtain a comment from Oleg Kiperregarding reports of his possible resignation. However, attempts to reach the head of the Odesa Regional Military Administration were unsuccessful—the response indicated that “the subscriber cannot accept your call.”

In May 2023, Oleg Kipper was officially appointed head of the Odesa Regional State Administration by decree of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

 Kipper is a native of the village of Tymkove in the Kodymsky District of the Odesa region. On September 11, 2020, he was appointed head of the Kyiv City Prosecutor’s Office. In 2014, Kipper was barred from holding public office under the “On Purification of Government” law, but he later succeeded in having the lustration provisions overturned in court.

Operation “Carthage”

On the evening of September 4, NABU and the SAP announced a special operation titled “Carthage” aimed at “exposing a criminal organization headed by an official from the Office of the Prosecutor General.” As part of the operation, investigators raided the offices of Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko and his first deputy, Maria Vdovichenko.

After the searches, NABU published a photo of a safe stuffed with dollar bills but did not explain who it belonged to.

Media outlets also reported that NABU and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) conducted searches at the residence of Oleg Kiper, head of the Odesa Regional Military Administration.

It later emerged that anti-corruption authorities had detained 42-year-old Serhiy Kropiva, who has been working at the Office of the Prosecutor General since last summer as deputy head of the Department of International Cooperation. Prior to that, he served as deputy to Oleg Kiper, head of the Odesa Regional Military Administration.

On September 6, the High Anti-Corruption Court remanded Kropiva into custody with the possibility of bail set at 120 million hryvnias. 

The High Anti-Corruption Court also arrested a confidant ofKropiva, the former deputy head of the Odesa Regional Military Administration.

Ірина Глухова