Without competition and with a "trail": who received shelter contracts in Odesa region

In the summer of 2025, the executive committee of the Odesa City Council determined that the city of Odesa should have 3,820 shelters to protect residents from air attacks. Of these, 3,696 are stationary and 124 are mobile. The executive committee also calculated that this need is less than one-third covered - there are only 1189 shelters in the city. The situation in the region is even worse, as the total amount of shelter needs is also missing.

At the same time, in the current year of 2025 alone, budget customers in Odesa region signed 223 agreements for the construction, repair and arrangement of shelters for a total of UAH 1.4 billion. Intent has compiled a rating of companies that have received the largest amounts for the arrangement or construction of shelters that are still missing in the city.

A deputy's firm

Berezivkaagroshlyakhbud LLC received the most budget funds for the construction of shelters. In 2025, the company signed three agreements totaling UAH 239.4 million. One of them is with the Department of Capital Construction of the Odesa Regional State Administration, which will pay UAH 99.5 million for the construction of a shelter for Podil School No. 3 by June 2026.

Another agreement for UAH 78 million was signed with the Department of Housing and Communal Services of the Podil City Council. Under this agreement, a shelter is to be built at Podil School No. 9 by the end of this year.

Kodyma Lyceum No. 1 has also signed a UAH 61.7 million contract with Berezivka Agroshlyakhbud. They are also expected to complete the construction of a shelter at the lyceum by the end of the year.

All agreements were concluded following open bidding with special conditions. And while Berezivkaagroshlyakhbud had no competitors in the first and third tenders, as they were the only ones to submit their proposals for these auctions, in the second one they had to compete with another company.

"In addition to Berezivkaagroshlyakhbud, Ukrservicegroup LLC also took part in the tender. Moreover, they offered to perform the work almost 5 million hryvnias cheaper. However, the Department of Housing and Communal Services of the Podil City Council rejected their proposal because, in their opinion, the estimate included materials that "increase the cost of the estimate."

According to the analytical platform YouControl, Berezivkaagroshlyakhbud LLC was registered in the village of Berezivka, Odesa region, in 2003. The ultimate beneficiary is a deputy of the Odesa Regional Council , Prince Khachatryan, and his brother Robert Khachatryan.

Criminal proceedings in the past

The second company in the ranking is Euro-StyleGroup LLC. The Tairova village council concluded one agreement with this company for UAH 163.8 million for the construction of a school canteen and a shelter in the village. The works are scheduled to be completed only by 2027, but the Nashi Hroshi publication has already revealed a possible overpayment of UAH 10 million for steel, pipes and concrete.

In turn, the Capital Construction Department of the Odesa Regional State Administration signed a UAH 7 million contract with Euro-Style Group to repair the basement and equip it with a shelter in the Odesa orphanage. The works were to be completed by August 2025.

In both cases, the contractor for these works was selected based on the results of open bidding with special conditions. And in both cases, only Euro-Style Group submitted its proposals, so it won.

Euro-Style Group has been on the market for over 9 years. The company's founder is Denys Kovtun. The company is involved in at least two criminal proceedings. In particular, the Euro-Style Group is mentioned among the companies that, according to the investigation, were involved in schemes of misappropriation of budget funds during the overhaul of the shelter at Odesa Special School No. 91. These include fictitious tenders, overstated procurement volumes and abuse of public funds.

Law enforcement officers also suspect the company of tax evasion through fictitious transactions with Bud Service Promotion LLC. In particular, they are accused of using tax invoices to generate a tax credit.

Two contracts for one object

The third in the ranking in terms of the amount of funds received is Bud-Marka LLC, which entered into two contracts for the construction of a radiation shelter at Lyceum No. 1 in Lyman for a total of UAH 139.6 million. The first contract was signed following an open tender in May 2025. The tender was conducted by the municipal enterprise Centralized Procurement Organization of the Odesa Regional Council (CPO) in the interests of the Education Department of the Lyman Village Council.

Two companies took part in the procurement: Bud-Marka LLC and Ukrservicegroup LLC. At the same time, UkrServiceGroup offered to perform the works for UAH 65.7 million, and Bud-Marka - for UAH 68.6 million. Because UkrServiceGroup did not provide a bid security, Bud-Marka was declared the winner.

However, later, since the CPO can only purchase goods and/or services in the interests of customers, but not works, this procurement was canceled. However, the contract has not yet been terminated.

In August, the education department of the Lyman village council itself conducted a similar procurement. This time, there was only one participant - Bud-Marka. And the cost of their work increased by 2 million and amounted to 70.9 million hryvnias. This is the amount of the contract with them.

"Bud-Marka was registered in Odesa in 2019. The company is managed and owned by Maksym Benyk, a resident of Tairovo. Until 2022, a man with this name headed the public procurement and logistics department of the Specialized Installation and Maintenance Unit of the Odesa City Council.

Overpricing

A UAH 97 million agreement for the construction of shelters in educational institutions of Vyhoda village was signed by the Department of Education, Culture, Youth and Sports of Vyhoda Village Council with DavmirStroy LLC. This is the fourth position in our ranking.

Although the procurement was conducted in the form of a tender, the company had no competitors, as it was the only one to come to the auction. The Nashi Hroshi publication found a large-scale overestimation of prices in the construction estimate. According to the contract price, the cost of construction works, excluding equipment, furniture and inventory, is UAH 86.8 million including VAT. According to journalists, this means that each square meter of the shelter costs 43.2 thousand UAH.

"This is 45% more expensive than the cost of housing construction in Odesa Oblast set by the Ministry of Development, which is UAH 23,648 per square meter," the journalists noted.

Davmir Stroy LLC was registered more than 6 years ago. The owner is Andrii Mezhevyi. The man with the same name is a pro bono assistant to MP Serhiy Koleboshyn.

On the third attempt

The fifth place belongs to the private enterprise"Aqualight" with the amount of 96 million hryvnias. This company received a contract from the Fontanka village council's education department and has until September 2027 to equip the Kryzhanivka lyceum shelter. The procurement was also conducted in the format of open bidding with special features, and Aqualight was the only bidder.

Aqualite was registered in Odesa in 2013. The owner is currently a resident of Donetsk region, Serhiy Gontarenko.

According to Intent's monitoring, this was the third attempt to select a contractor and start reconstructing the shelter at this lyceum. The first tender was announced in December 2024, but was later canceled due to lack of proposals.

The second tender was held in February 2025, and Aqualight was also announced the winner, but the company's proposal was later rejected and the auction was canceled.

As explained by the tender committee in the rejection protocol, the company provided all the relevant documents to meet the requirements of the tender documents, however, the scope of work (statement of work) provided by it as part of the tender proposal did not meet the quantitative, qualitative and other requirements of the tender documents, which led to an erroneous calculation of the total cost, which is a violation of the tender documents.

Thus, the contract price did not meet the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the terms of reference, which was a significant non-compliance of the private enterprise's tender proposal with the requirements of the tender documents, and, according to the existing practice of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine on this issue, such a tender proposal should have been rejected by the department.

Interesting for auditors, interesting for law enforcement

Sixth place goes to SPCFlagman LLC with 4 contracts worth UAH 93.9 million. The company signed two contracts as a result of open bidding with special conditions and two directly without using the Prozorro electronic system. One of them was for UAH 53 million.

The company signed the most expensive contract worth UAH 53 million with Usativ village council for the construction of a shelter in Illinka village. Later, auditors became interested in the procurement. And after their inspection, the police opened a criminal investigation into possible embezzlement of budget funds. Thus, investigators found overpricing of construction materials in the contractor's estimates. For example, they estimated that the overpayment for concrete mixtures of B25 and B30 classes could exceed UAH 1.6 million: the contract specified the cost of a cubic meter of concrete at UAH 4.6-4.7 thousand excluding VAT, while the market value was UAH 3.3-3.6 thousand (including VAT). According to law enforcement officials, other materials may also be subject to an increase, including gravel, galvanized wire mesh, and construction dispersion.

According to the YouControl service, Flagman SPC LLC was registered in Odesa in 2017. The owner is Dmytro Furman.

The company of a former MP

Four shelters worth a total of UAH 93.4 million are to be repaired by ConstructionTechnologies2000 LLC, which took the seventh place in our rating. The company signed three agreements worth UAH 58.7 million with the Department of Capital Construction of the Odesa Regional State Administration and one for UAH 34.5 million with the Department of Education, Youth and Sports of the Vyzyr Village Council. All contracts were signed following open tenders with special conditions, and in all of them, Construction Technologies 2000 was the only bidder.

According to the YouControl service, the company was registered in 2024 in Odesa. The owner and director of the company is Vladyslav Perehudov, a former deputy of the Lyman District Council from the European Solidarity party.

Overpayment of 3 million

South Ukrainian Construction Company LLC (PUBK) received 5 contracts for UAH 81.5 million. They signed the most expensive contract for 45.7 million hryvnias based on the results of a special tender with the Department of Education, Youth and Sports of the Vilkovo City Council.

The overpayment on this procurement alone may amount to more than UAH 3 million.

Another procurement - the arrangement of a shelter in the basement of the Isayevsky Professional Agricultural Lyceum, which was won by PUBK - was of interest to the auditors. The monitoring was initiated due to the detected signs of violations of public procurement legislation. In addition, the auditors pointed out a technical violation: the annexes to the contract were published in electronic format, not in machine-readable text format, which makes it difficult to automatically check.

South Ukrainian Construction Company LLC was founded in Odesa more than 6 years ago. The owner of the company is Konstantin Streltsov. It was on the eighth place in our rating.

Kickbacks on contracts

The ninth position is occupied by Yuzhfasad LLC, which received two contracts totaling UAH 51.8 million with the capital construction department of the Pivdenne City Council. One of the contracts is for the repair of a part of the basement in Lyceum No. 2 to create a shelter for UAH 46.7 million, and the other is for the arrangement of a basement for a shelter in Lyceum No. 1 for UAH 5.1 million. The first contract was concluded as a result of a special tender, and the second one was concluded directly.

Yuzhfasad LLC was registered in Odesa more than 7 years ago. The owner of the company is Mykhailo Kuryk, who is suspected of law enforcement of kickbacks on contracts. According to the investigation, he gave kickbacks to officials in the amount of 15% of the contract amount. In addition, in 2023, the police, along with the prosecutor's office, found that officials of the Pivdenne City Council's UCB paid Kurik, who is also an entrepreneur, for repairs to the ZolotaRybka nursery school that were not completed.

Hero of investigative journalism

The 10th place in the Intent's rating goes to Kam-Ekorembud LLC, which was awarded the contract for the repair of a school shelter by the Capital Construction Department of the Odesa City Council.

Two companies took part in the bidding: "Budtechno Plus, which offered to carry out the repairs for UAH 28.2 million, and Kam-Ekorembud LLC, whose offer was UAH 29.3 million. However, since Budtechno Plus did not provide all the documents, for example, on the availability of equipment and material and technical base, their offer was rejected. As a result, Kam-Ekorembud LLC became the winner, despite its more expensive offer.

Kam-Ekorembud was registered more than five years ago in Odesa. The owner is Oksana Sheremeta. The media mentioned Kam-Ekorembud in connection with the possible overstatement of the cost of construction materials during the repair of the shelter of the city hospital No. 11 in Odesa. The journalists identified a possible overpayment of UAH 1.4 million in three items alone.

Thus, as we can see, the analysis of the companies that received the contracts shows that a significant part of the funds for the construction and repair of shelters in Odesa region often goes to companies with a problematic reputation or companies with a criminal record.

This project was conducted with the support of the program "Stronger Together: Media and Democracy" program implemented by the World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) in partnership with the Association of Independent Regional Publishers of Ukraine (ARPU) and the Norwegian Media Business Association (MBL) with support from Norway. The views of the authors do not necessarily reflect the official position of the program partners.

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