A 50-year-old deputy of the Lviv regional council from the “European Solidarity” party, Volodymyr Domanskyi, has never been the focus of attention. He is one of those deputies who try to go unnoticed. So, at first, his detention on Christmas Eve was of interest only to the local media. Yet, when the next day, the press-service of the State Bureau of Investigation posted a photo with the rolls of dollars in the lavatory pan, Volodymyr Domanskyi became the “star” of the nation.
However, Volodymyr Domanskyi is well-known in Briukhovychi, a quiet, prestigious Lviv suburb where the local rich like to settle. NGL.media has been investigating Volodymyr Domanskyi’s activity for several months, and the facts we have found demonstrate that his detention is only the beginning of a high-profile story.
In 2010, Volodymyr Domanskyi, born in Lviv, was elected a deputy of the local village council and, in 2015 — the head of the village council. He was destined to become the last full-fledged governor of Briukhovychi. In the autumn of 2020, the village became a part of the Lviv municipal community, so the village council was closed down. However, these five years had made a considerable impact on his family’s well-being.
As of the moment of becoming the head of the village council, he was not rich. According to the declaration, since 2016, he owned a small apartment in Lviv with a total area of 23 sq.m. and a half of the house with an area of 59 sq.m. somewhere in Volia-Homuletska a village near Lviv, now a part of the Lviv municipal community , UAH 420 thousand between him and his wife, and a share in “Ninel” company the primary kind of activity — retail trade of meat and meat products, no published financial statements .
Volodymyr Domanskyi headed Briukhovychi for only five years, yet during this period, his family managed to accumulate a lot of real estate (a picture from Facebook)
The then annual salary of the head of the village council was only UAH 140 thousand a little over five thousand dollars at the NBU rate as of 2016 . However, the family started gaining new property very soon.
At first, these were small purchases. For instance, in 2017, his wife bought a car for UAH 356 thousand, and a year later – an apartment for UAH 500 thousand. And as early as 2020, Kateryna Domanska became the owner of a house in Briukhovychi, worth UAH 900 thousand.
And, of course, this is not the entire picture.
“This is business, you see! She bought it cheap and sold it dear”
While Volodymyr Domanskyi governed Briukhovychi, his wife’s closest relatives started acquiring the real estate in the village as well. For instance, her 18-year-old brother, Volodymyr Uskyi, bought two land plots of over 2,500 sq.m. in Briukhovychi for half a million hryvnia. Being only 22, he spent UAH 845 thousand to buy an apartment in a house at 24 Lvivska Street, which he has recently sold for over UAH 2 million. The apartment building co-owner association (ABCA), “Lvivske 24”, headed by him until recently, is still trying to obtain the land here – obviously, to build a new residential complex.
Vasyl Uskyi, Domanskyi’s father-in-law, has become the owner of two commercial premises with an area of 118.5 sq.m. and 53.5 sq.m. In the smaller premises, located in the “Kazka” residential complex, Kateryna Domanska started a medical practice – “the first medical room Pokrova in Briukhovychi”. She received the relevant medical licence on November 23, 2023.
Volodymyr Domanskyi and his wife Kateryna (a picture from Facebook)
Last December, Vasyl Uskyi, a standard crane operator, bought a hectare of land in Yavorivskyi district from Roman Suvorov, a former deputy of the Briukhovychi village council, for the symbolic UAH 65.4 thousand. Previously, still in 2023, the elder Uskyi bought 1,400 sq.m. more land in Briukhovychi for UAH 1.3 million, which equalled USD 35 thousand according to the then NBU rate, although this land plot was on sale in OLX for USD 90 thousand. Now, as per the real estate agent’s explanation, these 1,400 sq.m. and the adjacent 600 sq.m. are on sale at the cost of USD 260 thousand. So, the requested price for the plot, owned by Domanskyi’s father-in-law, is USD 182 thousand.
The procured plot was used by Vasyl Uskyi as a pledge to borrow over one million hryvnia from Pavlo Nikitin. He was to repay the money by December 6 of this year. The company, co-owned by Nikitin, built a residential complex in Briukhovychi, in Shyroka Street, — the “Greenwood-3” residential complex. It was during the period when Domanskyi had been heading the village council that this construction was permitted.
Domanskyi said that Nikitin had been his, his father-in-law’s and mother-in-law’s acquaintance for a long time. “Well, they have borrowed the money. So what?” Domanskyi said about his father-in-law’s loan.
The same year, Domanskyi’s mother-in-law, Maria Uska, also borrowed the money from Olena Nikitina, the wife of Pavlo Nikitin, but the amount was much more considerable — UAH 6.2 million. “She has borrowed the money for her business. Which one? Commercial secret,” Domanskyi explained.
The loan is secured with a pledge — an apartment with an area of 139.6 sq.m. in the Lviv residential complex, “Sofiivka”. Maria Uska acquired the property rights for this real estate at the cost of UAH 1.5 million in 2020, at the stage of construction. In addition to this real estate object, in August 2022, she bought two land plots in Briukhovychi, and one hundred square meters cost her almost 560 dollars on average. There are no such prices in this village at all.
In 2017, Maria Uska paid UAH 212.6 thousand to buy an apartment with an area of 77 sq.m. in Briukhovychi, at 9b Izdryka Street. Last January, she sold it at a 12 times higher price. This house in Izdryka Street is one of the projects of the Briukhovychi builder, Andriy Zavadskyi. We have previously written about his relations with Volodymyr Domanskyi. However, there was just a brief comment from the former head of the village council on his mother-in-law’s selling the apartment 12 times more expensive: “This is business, you see! She bought it cheap and sold it dear”.
The loans are not strange to Volodymyr Domanskyi himself. He borrowed almost UAH 1.75 million (USD 67 thousand) from Liubomyr Dmytruk, a Briukhovychi resident. This loan was confirmed by Dmytruk — in his words, he had lent the money in cash and then got it back sometime in May 2022. Generally, it is in agreement with the data of the real estate register, which states that the deadline for the main obligation was March 1, 2022.
Volodymyr Domanskyi didn’t declare this loan, although he should have. The amount exceeds 500 subsistence rates, so it is covered by Article 366-2 of the CC (declaration of incorrect information).
And this was not the only loan. At the end of 2021, Kateryna Domanska also borrowed UAH 0.5 million. The lender confirmed for us that she repaid her loan at the beginning of the following year. So, in 2022, the Domanskyis were to repay a total of almost UAH 2.3 million.
Judging by the income statements, they were clearly short of this money. In 2022, Domanskyi’s income was only UAH 275.5 thousand, and the savings decreased by a mere UAH 280 thousand. The only possible explanation is his wife’s sale of the shop premises with an area of 23.2 sq.m., but that was only at the end of the year. The sale of this real estate object was not declared by Domanskyi either.
Buying without declaring
Since Volodymyr Domanskyi is a public figure and has to declare everything he owns, his wife buys property differently. And you will not see even a mention of these purchases in his declarations.
For instance, in 2021, Kateryna Domanska became the owner of the real estate, worth over UAH 5 million, when she became a founder of the company, which had received the premises with an area of almost 400 sq.m. in Lviv, not long before.
The previous owner of the place, Oksana Lafinchuk, wanted to sell this “attached building for household services” of 399.8 sq.m. in Shevchenka Street for some time. Using the open platforms, she tried to get UAH 5.5 million – 6.84 million for these premises, but nobody was willing to buy them. Suddenly, in September 2021, she registered “Riasne-Service” company and transferred these premises to the latter. The statutory capital of the newly founded company was only UAH 645 thousand, which was ten times less than the amount that Lafinchuk had tried to get for this real estate object.
A month later, Kateryna Domanska replaced Lafinchuk and became the company’s owner, thus obtaining expensive real estate as well.
The commercial building, owned by Kateryna Domanska, is divided into several segments with separate leaseholders (a photo by NGL.media)
Serhii Mytkalyk, the chairman of the board of the NGO “Anti-Corruption Headquarters”, explains that this is a typical case when the property is registered with a company — then it has to be declared only if the declarant personally uses it, for instance, if he lives in the building or drives a vehicle, registered with a legal entity.
It is noteworthy that Domanskyi “forgot” to specify “Riasne-Service” in the declaration for 2021 and mentioned it only when reporting for the next one. In Mytkalyk’s words, this is only an administrative offence, and it is a reason to address the NACP.
Oksana Lafinchuk, the previous owner of the premises, refused to disclose the amount she got from selling this real estate. NGL.media contacted several real estate experts who evaluated the cost using photos of the building. According to their estimate, in 2021, such premises cost USD 500–700 per one square metre, i.e. a total of USD 200–280 thousand.
“It surely wasn’t expensive”
While analysing Volodymyr Domanskyi’s declarations, it is impossible to understand where the money has come from to afford all this property. In 2020, his salary as the head of Briukhovychi village council, including financial aid, was only UAH 476 thousand, and his wife’s income was a little over UAH 40 thousand a year. The family had about UAH 1.2 million in cash and bank accounts. In the next year, 2021, only Volodymyr Domanskyi earned some money — UAH 169 thousand a year, and there were no changes in their cash or bank accounts.
So, one may conclude that the deputy’s family lived on UAH 685.5 thousand for those two years, but at the same time, somehow succeeded in buying a company with the statutory capital of UAH 645 thousand, which owned the premises, worth USD 200–280 thousand. It should be noted that the sale of the company is not the sale of the property, and formally, it could have been sold for one hryvnia.
“This is the issue of the taxation legislation, and one may raise a question about probable intentional tax evasion while selling the company. During the inspection of declarations, this case may be investigated by the NACP or the taxation authorities,” Serhii Mytkalyk believes.
Kateryna Domanska refused to talk to NGL.media about her business. Volodymyr Domanskyi made a brief remark that “it was a long time ago”, his wife was dealing with it, and the building “definitely wasn’t expensive”. “I saw that building on sale for a very long time, and it was much cheaper,” he said. In his words, they didn’t buy those premises at all — “there were some exchanges”, but he doesn’t remember the details.
NGL.media obtained an official extract with historical data on the acquisition of the property by the previous owner. There was nothing related to the barter agreement; the only present fact was that in late September of the same year, Lafinchuk bought an apartment in Lviv.
In 2022, “Riasne-Service” got another co-owner, Tetiana Tomal, who contributed an apartment to the statutory capital. At approximately the same time, Tomal became the owner of another apartment in Briukhovychi, on Riasnianska Street, — she got it from the company of Domanskyi’s father-in-law. We will talk about it later.
While this material was being prepared for publication, Kateryna Domanska has again remained the sole owner of the “Riasne-Service”, so she can be congratulated upon obtaining another item for her collection.
Domanskyi’s telephone discloses the family business
This object is an apartment in the three-story building at 2 Klenova Street, in Briukhovychi, which was severely damaged by fire four years ago. Last summer, the ABCA “Klenova-2”, was established there. As per the YouControl data, the cell phone number of Volodymyr Domanskyi was registered as the contact phone number.
One would think that since his wife’s company has an apartment therein, what is there to hide? Yet when asked about the phone number and the ABCA, Domanskyi claimed to be uninvolved in it at all.
“When I held the official position, many people came to me to register a land plot, to register their ownership rights for the property; I gave my phone number to everybody, it is in open access,” this is how he implied that almost anyone could use his phone number.
Strange as it is, Volodymyr Domanskyi is well known to the head of this ABCA, Volodymyr Kovalchuk. “He has bought some living space here,” he said. Later, he reviewed the documents and clarified that the real estate had been registered with Domanskyi’s wife’s company. As per Kovalchuk, Domanskyi seemed to plan on investing in the re-building of the house at 2 Klenova Street that had burned.
“Well, what kind of a plan was it? That he would give some living premises in the newly-built house,” the head of the ABCA explained. But he said that this business had stopped since they had faced a problem obtaining land. “They exaggerate my possibilities,” Domanskyi commented. “I told them that I would help them find somebody.”
Volodymyr Domanskyi also denies relations with the “D.S. Group” company, which specified his phone number in their registration documents. Officially, this company belongs to Vasyl Uskyi, his father-in-law. In autumn 2022, his father-in-law also got registered as a sole entrepreneur, whose primary activity was “service of drinks”, and specified his son-in-law’s phone number again.
That seemed to be all, but it was not the case. The phone number of Volodymyr Domanskyi is also used by the company, which is conducting large-scale construction of a restaurant and a hotel in Briukhovychi park — officially at 3 Kurortna Street.
A restaurant with a hotel in Briukhovychi park (a picture by NGL.media)
NGL.media has previously disclosed that at the end of being in his position, Domanskyi and the deputies gave their permission for a cheap sale of the land under this construction – at the cost of a mere UAH 21 thousand per one hundred square meters. The enterprise “Kniahynia”, which officially belongs to Pavlo Denysiuk, associate professor of the Lviv Polytechnic National University, became its owner. Not long before joining Lviv, the Briukhovychi village council also issued updated city-planning conditions and restrictions for this restaurant, and the cell phone number of Domanskyi is specified as the contact phone number of the director of PE “Kniahynia”.
Pavlo Denysiuk categorically refused to talk about Domanskyi and the restaurant. So, we can only report two additional facts about him. Both Domanskyi and Denysiuk were registered at the same address in Briukhovychi. Denysiuk was also a deputy of the Briukhovychi village council and a member of the “Razom do zmin” [“Towards Changes Together”] group of deputies, headed by Volodymyr Domanskyi.
“He is an acquaintance of mine. When he was studying, he was registered in our parents’ house. He dated the godmother of my child,” Domanskyi explained, denying his involvement in the construction in the park.
Salvador in the Rynok
While NGL.media worked on this investigation, several sources informed us that Volodymyr Domanskyi allegedly was the owner of a restaurant in the Rynok Square in Lviv – “Tavern Salvador”. As per the institution’s Instagram page, it opened in early 2023.
It turned out that the restaurant building was leased by the parents of Kateryna Domanska — Maria and Vasyl Uskyi. It was confirmed by Yaroslav Portukhai, the owner of the premises.
The restaurant of the Domanskyis-the Uskyis in Rynok Square in Lviv (a picture from Instagram)
Thanks to the reply from the Chief Department of the STS in the Lviv region, NGL.media found another confirmation about the person running the restaurant: the licence of Vasyl Uskyi for retail trade of alcohol indicated “Tavern Salvador” as the trading location. Yet, this licence was cancelled in the autumn of 2023 following his request. The baton was picked up by his wife, Maria Uska, who got registered as a sole entrepreneur in August 2023, received the same licence in the same month, and in August 2024, got another licence for one year. The same “Salvador” is specified as a trading place.
However, on November 4, this licence was cancelled following her request. The reason seems to lie in the fact that recently, “Salvador” has stopped working — its pages on social networks have not been updated since September.
Volodymyr Domanskyi confirmed that he had invested his money into the restaurant. “I worked there [in Salvador] as a sole entrepreneur. This was our family business. So, my mother-in-law and father-in-law were sole entrepreneurs there as well. We worked together. My kind of activity was the kitchen,” he explained. “We leased this restaurant. It was 70% ready; we bought some additional equipment. So, enormous finances were not required there. But we did invest some.” In his words, the re-construction of the restaurant cost about UAH 150 thousand, the lion’s share of which was invested by him.
It was due to the restaurant that the revenue in the amount of UAH 3.4 million (don’t mix it up with the income) appeared in the last declaration, submitted by Domanskyi, because the one for the previous year had stated only UAH 275.5 thousand. Last year, he and his wife sold an apartment in Briukhovychi for UAH 3.8 million, which they had bought in 2018 for UAH 0.5 million. It should be noted, though, that they expanded the residential space — the area was enlarged from 81 sq.m. to 100 sq.m.
A building start-up
A younger brother of Kateryna Domanska, 25-year-old Volodymyr Uskyi, has recently started a new business. He got registered as a sole entrepreneur, and now drives a delivery truck, bought by his sister in spring. By the way, this year, the Domanskyis started driving an electric car, Jaguar I-Pace 2018, which costs over one million hryvnias and has been bought pursuant to a lease purchase agreement.
Recently, the younger Uskyi married Violetta Nuraemt, a Lviv resident, who had started buying land in Briukhovychi at the age of 19. In December 2018, she purchased two land plots with an area of about 1,400 sq.m. Noteworthy is the fact that two unrelated sellers of land were represented by the same 25-year-old resident of Briukhovychi, using the power of attorney. Another common thing was the symbolic price of the land.
One of the land plots in Kurortna Street with an area of 0.0544 ha had been allotted to another man during the deputies’ session not long before, but he sold it to Nuraemt for a mere UAH 60 thousand. It is not possible to find even a hundred square meters in Briukhovychi which would cost that little.
According to the data of YouControl, at the age of 20, Violetta Nuraemt became the founder of a building company and transferred this land plot in Kurortna Street to the latter. The company was called “Performance”; it was transferred to the owners of “!FEST Holding of Emotions” very quickly. Now this is “KVITKA Development Company”. And the construction project has already been implemented – they have built a residential multi-storeyed building.
This construction was permitted by the Briukhovychi village council, headed by Volodymyr Domanskyi, which issued city-planning conditions and restrictions to the company of 20-year-old Violetta in August 2020, and in autumn, the company was already sold.
As for the second purchased land plot with an area of 0.0854 ha, a young entrepreneur bought it for UAH 140 thousand and sold it for almost UAH 1.7 million. This land was also allotted free of charge during the session of the Briukhovychi village council five months prior to the sale. Violetta Nuraemt refused to talk to NGL.media.
Join the NGL.media community and gain access to exclusive content and opportunities. By choosing a suitable for you support level, you will gain access to the editorial chat, newsletters, step-by-step OSINT guides, invitations to private events, exclusive merchandise, and much more.
Investigative journalism should not be regarded as a hobby or a form of volunteering. It is a complex and highly professional field that demands significant time, effort, and courage. Although this work is expensive, it is essential for uncovering the truth about what is really happening in the country.
Readers’ support is what makes it possible to create materials that lead to real changes in the country. Our publications have already driven the adoption of new laws, the resignation of corrupt officials, and the implementation of transparent rules for engaging with authorities.
Domanskyi’s father-in-law also happened to have two more companies. It all started in 2020. That was when Vasyl Uskyi became the co-founder of “DM Consulting Group”, which had different kinds of activities — from construction to restaurants. It is not clear what this company was actually doing. As of the period of writing this article, he was the sole owner, but when we started calling everyone to get some comments, this company was transferred to another man and changed its name to “Veshin Ltd”.
Using the archive data of the real estate register, NGL.media found out that a series of real estate objects has passed through “DM Consulting Group”. It looked like this. The co-founder would contribute some real estate to the statutory capital, then this real estate would be transferred to other people using various ways.
This was the case with the apartment received by Tetiana Tomal, a business partner of Domanskyi’s wife. This apartment was contributed to the statutory capital of “DM Consulting Group” by a partner in the father-in-law’s company in February 2022, and its cost was specified as UAH 20 thousand, but in late October, it was removed from the company and transferred to Tomal who decided to leave the ranks of the company members. The apartment was evaluated to cost UAH 75 thousand.
Oleksii Boiko, the lawyer of the “Anti-Corruption Action Centre”, explains that while contributing the property to the statutory capital, the founders agree on its price. A similar situation occurs when the founder leaves the company. In this case, taxes are not required.
Even more noteworthy are two houses at 12 Likarska Street in Briukhovychi, with an area of 158.6 sq.m. each. Judging by the open data sources, these are townhouses in the “Stockholm” centre, built on the land, leased for “maintenance of the recreational property complex” by the company headed by Volodymyr Kosenko. These houses were also contributed to the statutory capital of “DM Consulting Group” in 2020 by its co-founders, and then they were sold.
The sale took place in the course of the same year, but one cottage was sold for almost UAH 2.6 million and the other — for a mere UAH 80 thousand. A 22-year-old girl, a Lviv resident, bought some real estate for a song.
There is much less information about the second company of the father-in-law, “D.S. Group,” which uses Volodymyr Domanskyi’s telephone number. His father-in-law had a partner, Ihor Silvester, a former deputy of the Lviv city council from “Svoboda” party. He left the business in the summer of 2024. That’s when he, as the head of the company, was replaced by Volodymyr Ledakhivskyi – a man who, according to Domanskyi’s declaration, paid the latter a salary of UAH 4.4 thousand in 2023. By the way, it was Ledakhivskyi who bought an apartment from Kateryna Domanska’s brother for UAH 2 million.
“Both the grandmother and grandfather”
We wanted to ask Domanskyi’s mother-in-law and father-in-law where the Uskyis had obtained the money for all these purchases and business. Maria Uska asked us to call again in one hour. Yet she picked up the phone neither in one hour nor the next day. Her husband, a crane operator, turned out to be too busy at work.
According to the sources of NGL.media, in 2017–2022, Maria Uska worked for “Inters Oil And Trans” LLC and had an average official salary of two to three thousand hryvnia a month. When Vasyl Uskyi worked for “Videnska Kava” [“Vienna Coffee”] in 2014–2021, he earned about the same amount. In 2023, he started working for “Ground Tech” LLC with a salary of UAH 8–10 thousand — this is the company owned by the son of the former secretary of the Briukhovychi village council, Oleksandra Oshchudliak.
Volodymyr Domanskyi talks about his relatives’ sources of income in general terms only, like, his father-in-law has been working for many years, and his salary is “not that little”. They also had some savings; they bought and sold some things, and if they needed the money, they would borrow it, and so forth, “My mother-in-law used to be a sole entrepreneur a long time ago, then she worked in trade. Both the grandmother and grandfather definitely had some money.”
This material was prepared with financial support from the National Endowment for Democracy. The content of the publication is the sole responsibility of the editorial office and does not reflect the views of the National Endowment for Democracy