In October 2024, the Supreme Court of Ukraine resolved the issue regarding the legality of terminating funding for the political party "Holos".
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SubscribeIt all began in 2021 when a member of the "Holos" party, Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, reported a "hole of over one million hryvnias" in the party's budget and connected this to the activities of the current leader of the "Holos" faction, Yaroslav Zheleznyak.
Over the course of three years, accusations against him concerning embezzlement, including a sum of 5 million UAH, were substantiated.
Thus, in November 2021, the NACP first suspended funding for "Holos".
The reason cited was the embezzlement of funds, which Yurchyshyn directly attributed to Zheleznyak.
Yurchyshyn also asserted that the party's funds, which were transferred to unidentified individuals-entrepreneurs, were used to disseminate "fake news about the head of the (at that time) parliamentary group 'Fairness', Alexander Ustinov."
Zheleznyak denied both claims, although he later became the head of "Holos", while Ustinov was removed from the party leadership.
Three years have passed. Finally, the statements made by representatives of "Holos" regarding Zheleznyak were confirmed not only by the official document from the NACP but also by the Supreme Court's ruling. Moreover, the amount of illegally embezzled money from "Holos" turned out to be significantly higher, reaching almost 5 million UAH.
The NACP noted discrepancies in the reports of "Holos" regarding assets, income, and financial obligations.
In two quarterly reports for 2020, the "Holos" party, in particular, included inaccurate information totaling 4 million 726 thousand 500 UAH.
“The NACP established that the political party 'Holos' entered into service agreements with LLC 'Maintis' for 1 million UAH. Among these services were oral consultations and clarifications on the practical aspects of applying the Electoral Code of Ukraine for party representatives; oral legal consultations on election process issues for members of local election commissions; verification of the accuracy of documents for observers during the local elections on October 25, 2020, etc. However, the mentioned company did not provide these services to the party. This is confirmed, in particular, by materials obtained from government agencies (the State Bureau of Investigations, the State Tax Service of Ukraine), informational databases, and therefore, the information is inaccurate.
With two individual entrepreneurs, the political party concluded contracts for 274 thousand UAH, containing inaccurate information. In particular, they included information about draft bill numbers that had not yet been registered in Parliament at the time the contracts were concluded,” noted the NACP.
Although Yurchyshyn had directly informed three years ago that the services for the alleged monitoring, which the party paid for under Zheleznyak's leadership, actually consisted of reprints of materials from the civil network "OPORA".
In June 2024, the NACP suspended funding for the political party "Holos". This decision is not subject to reinstatement, as ruled by the Cassation Administrative Court, which recognized the decision of the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NACP) as lawful.
This means that as of 2021, representatives of the "Holos" party were aware of financial transactions involving party funds and explicitly named those involved and interested in them. At the same time, neither the decision of the NACP nor the court led to any logical response from the party regarding the actions of Yaroslav Zheleznyak.
He continues to lead the "Holos" faction in parliament, has not been dismissed, nor has he been publicly held accountable for the nearly 5 million UAH that went missing.
Additionally, in 2023, Zheleznyak declared assets worth 18 million UAH while officially earning only 2 million UAH.