Andrii Kavetskyi, a 42-year-old head of the Chief Department of the StateGeoCadastre [the State Service for Geodesy, Cartography, and Cadastre] in the Lviv region, may be considered a lucky man. Having quickly followed a classic path of a career-driven official in his field, he got a position that enabled him to decide who would get the state-owned land.
In almost 10 years of holding this position, Andrii Kavetskyi featured in criminal land-related cases three times, and there were three attempts to dismiss him, yet with no success. He hadn’t been declaring any personal property for years, revealing only the considerable income of his wife, an entrepreneur. And he wasn’t punished for it, either.
However, two weeks ago, luck deserted him – he was arrested while attempting to give a bribe of USD 30 thousand to the NACP employee the National Agency on Corruption Prevention to get positive feedback after the monitoring of his life and the life of related persons.
What exactly did Andrii Kavetskyi wish to hide? What made him take such a reckless step? NGL.media managed to have a deeper look behind the façade of the modest and unassuming life of the main land official of the Lviv region. Everything seems to be almost classic: a business, a rich mother-in-law, generous friends, and lots of luck.
What happened?
The press release of the SBI the State Bureau of Investigation, published after Andrii Kavetskyi’s arrest, states that the NACP started monitoring his lifestyle Lifestyle monitoring – a special procedure of financial control, used by the NACP to check whether the actual level of public service employee’s life (an official, a deputy, a judge) corresponds to their official income and property, specified in the declaration at the end of last year. Although this procedure isn’t announced, some time later Kavetskyi found out about this check.
“In June 2026, the head of the regional StateGeoCadaster started insisting on a personal meeting with the head of one NACP department. During the meeting in Lviv, he offered the NACP employee USD 30 thousand for desired feedback of the monitoring. Trying to conceal the content of the conversation, the man wrote the amount of the bribe with his pen on a napkin,” the SBI reported.
The NACP employee told his management and the SBI investigators about this offer, so the money transfer during the next meeting took place under their surveillance. As soon as Kavetskyi gave the money – in a tube for a whiskey bottle, for some reason – he was immediately arrested and served the suspicion of bribery part 3 of Art. 369 of the CC – offering, promising, or giving an unlawful benefit to a public official in a position of responsibility; four to eight years of imprisonment with possible confiscation. On July 29, the court remanded him in custody with a possible bail of UAH 89.8 mln.
This detention was preceded by almost 20 years of Andrii Kavetskyi’s work in the land domain, half of this period was spent in the position of the head of the Chief Department of the StateGeoCadastre in the Lviv region.
A bright career, criminal cases, and mystery
Andrii Kavetskyi was born in the village of Mlyniv in the Rivne region, but has lived his entire adult life in the Lviv suburbs. It is noteworthy that by the age of 27, he didn’t have a taxpayer identification number due to his religious beliefs.
Judging by the information on the website of the Lviv StateGeoCadastre, Kavetskyi is a typical official in his field. He got his education at the Lviv Agrarian University, specializing in “land utilization and cadastre” and “finances”, and started working as a land utilization engineer immediately.
In 2011, Andrii Kavetskyi got a position as an engineer of the Lviv branch of the Centre of State Land Cadastre a state enterprise, maintaining the official electronic database of all the Ukrainian lands, and performing technical tasks, including measuring the land plots and preparing documents for them. At first, he was an engineer, and later he headed this branch of the state enterprise.
In 2015, Andrii Kavetskyi passed the relevant competition and headed the Chief Department of the StateGeoCadastre in the Lviv region with the approval of the then head of the Lviv RSA, Oleh Syniutka. His work in this position was constantly marked by corruption-related cases and no less remarkable ability to come out unscathed. A typical example is the story of his first dismissal from the position. Right, it was not the only one, but we’ll come to that later.
At the end of 2016, a disciplinary proceeding was initiated against Kavetskyi, and he was suspended from his position for two months. That’s when he submitted a letter of resignation, but half a year later, he challenged his dismissal in court, claiming that he had written that letter under pressure. The court hearings lasted for two and half years, until ending with a settlement agreement – and Kavetskyi got his position back.
However, a month later he was dismissed again – this time it was mandatory, due to a criminal case on an attempt of unlawful transfer of some land near Lviv into private property. Again, Kavetskyi succeeded in getting his position back via court, because his management made procedural mistakes while dismissing him.
The case, which was a reason for Kavetskyi’s second dismissal, was among the most resounding ones during his holding this position. That’s when he was accused of an attempt to remove almost 27 ha of land in the Lviv suburbs from the municipal property and transfer it to private owners. The cost of the land was evaluated at UAH 113 mln. However, this case fell apart in court, partly because the Zymnovodivska community, on whose initiative this criminal case was initiated, withdrew its claims against Kavetskyi. So, in November 2024, the Lviv court acquitted Kavetskyi. By the way, the land was actually returned to the municipal ownership of the Zymnovodivska community, although the attempts to privatise it are still ongoing.
The case of Zymna Voda isn’t the only one to feature Andrii Kavetskyi. Two more cases were related to land management in Skole and Turka districts of the Lviv region. Some prosecutors’ evidence in these cases was ruled inadmissible due to the violation of the search procedure. So Kavetskyi was acquitted in these cases as well.
Another resounding case of the Lviv StateGeoCadastre is related to the transfer of a land plot on the outskirts of Lviv, where a new street was planned, to Bohdan Dubnevych’s son-in-law. However, in that case, the suspicion was announced not to Andrii Kavetskyi, but his subordinate – Vasyl Sobko, the head of the department of control over the utilization and protection of the land.
So, what have we learned about Andrii Kavetskyi so far? 10 years in the position with several breaks, three acquittals, and three unsuccessful dismissal attempts. Add to that absolute secrecy and caution.
Andrii Kavetskyi never came to the meetings of the profile deputies’ land commission and ignored the calls to report to the deputies during the session of the Lviv regional council. The deputies always received written replies to all the allegations of misconduct, which were often signed by Kavetskyi’s subordinates.
It was due to this behaviour that in 2021, the Lviv regional council initiated the third dismissal of Kavetskyi. This time, the reason was the obstruction of one of the requirements of the decentralization reform – the transfer of the land outside the settlement borders to territorial communities In May 2021, the law related to the transfer of all the land in state ownership outside the settlement borders (with rare exceptions, for instance, the land under state enterprises with state-owned objects) into the municipal ownership of the territorial communities within whose borders they are located. It meant that the state executive bodies (the StateGeoCadastre, the RSA, the DSA) lost their right to use these land plots even prior to the completion of the state registration of the municipal ownership right to the community.
“With these actions, the StateGeoCadastre in the Lviv region casts doubts on the decentralization reform, because there are instances of officials abusing their authority regarding the transparency of land transfer to territorial communities, and the delay in this process,” Yurii Radelytskyi, the head of the profile deputies’ commission, commented at the time.
Now, five years later, Radelytskyi recalls that they didn’t succeed in putting the squeeze on Kavetskyi’s dismissal due to the shortage of deputies’ votes.
“There constantly were some questions about land privatization, there were some problems in each community. Even law enforcement bodies worked all the time, there were some crimes,” the deputy told NGL.media. “We called him to the session to give a report about all those land issues. But he filed a business trip request and didn’t come, and then we didn’t get enough votes to raise this issue for the following session […] He didn’t have any desire to come or give any information, and this issue was always blocked.”
Forgotten property and generous friends
Despite the evident unwillingness to be public, Andrii Kavetskyi couldn’t ignore the obligation of submitting electronic income declarations. Nevertheless, up to 2023, Andrii Kavetskyi submitted almost empty declarations: no real estate, no land, no vehicles. He indicated only the income, both his and his wife’s, and considerable savings, mainly in cash. And he was lucky – his declarations were never chosen by the NACP for any checks. Yet, it was evident that hiding the property was his deliberate decision.
In the declaration for 2023, Kavetskyi first stated that he didn’t actually live on the street. It turned out that he was registered in his parents’ apartment in the village of Mlyniv in the Rivne region, but he resides with his family in a small one-room apartment in Lviv that belongs to his wife’s brother.
The following year, he also declared a two-storied residential house with the attic floor in the village of Solonka on the outskirts of Lviv, which belongs to his mother-in-law, Olha Moroz, since 2004. In 2024, she registered half of the house in the name of her daughter, Kateryna Kavetska. The sole entrepreneurship of Kateryna Kavetska is registered at the same address.
A residential house in Solonka, which officially belongs to Andrii Kavetskyi’s mother-in-law and wife (a photo by NGL.media)
Since 2023, Andrii Kavetskyi declares that he uses a premium-class vehicle Lexus LS 460, which officially belongs to 42-year-old Denys Nakonechnyi, a builder from Dubliany a town, neighbouring Lviv, which belongs to the Lviv city territorial community. Nakonechnyi refused to explain to NGL.media why the main land official of the region had been using his vehicle for at least four years in a row. In his words, he had already sold this car.
In 2025, Kavetskyi recalled another car – Audi Q8 2020, which has been used by Kateryna Kavetska since 2022. As Kavetskyi didn’t declare this car, in 2024 the High Anticorruption Court imposed an obligation on the NABU to initiate criminal proceedings against Kavetskyi. The claimant in this case was Oleksandr Shatnii, an activist from Kyiv, who reported to the NABU that Andrii Kavetskyi drove this vehicle without declaring it. The criminal case was initiated but it didn’t get to the verdict.
Yet Kavetskyi had to declare Audi Q8. This car, along with the rest of the property, isn’t registered in Kavetskyi’s name. As of 2025, it was owned by Pavlo Vyhovskyi, a 41-year-old lawyer and agricultural entrepreneur from Dubliany. NGL.media didn’t succeed in getting his comments.
Andrii Kavetskyi is not a very careful driver, so he is periodically fined for violating traffic rules. It helped NGL.media find two more cars, which he periodically drove: BMW 7 Series 2021 and Jaguar XJ 2017 with the plates, registered in Kyiv. And in 2026, Kavetskyi started driving Lexus LS 600h 2013, registered in the name of Volodymyr Volynets, a 42-year-old business partner of the abovementioned Denys Nakonechnyi.
It is noteworthy that the official owners of cars, driven by Kavetskyi, are somehow related to Dubliany where he used to study and are about his age. In GetContact, their phone numbers are written with notes like “from Kavetskyi”, “to Kavetskyi”, etc.
So, everything is more or less clear about cars – he doesn’t own any, but generous friends let both Kavetskyi and his wife drive their vehicles without any problems.
And what about place of residence? Officially, Andrii Kavetskyi declares his residence in a one-room apartment in Sykhiv a residential district in the south of Lviv which belongs to his wife’s brother. However, this place of residence is hardly suitable for a family to live, besides, his mother-in-law, Olha Moroz, owns two houses near Lviv. In addition to the abovementioned house in Solonka, she officially owns one more newer two-storied house in Malechkovychi, which is another well-off village near Lviv. The price of houses with a similar area starts with USD 200 thousand now.
A house in the village of Malechkovychi near Lviv, registered in the name of Andrii Kavetskyi’s mother-in-law (a photo by NGL.media)
Olha Moroz refused to talk to NGL.media.
Money and business of his wife
The official declarations of Andrii Kavetskyi demonstrate that the main breadwinner in the family is his wife. In 2025 alone, Kateryna Kavetska earned UAH 6.5 mln as a sole entrepreneur – since 2019, she has been a registered entrepreneur, specializing in the activity of restaurants and provision of services of mobile food supply.
Kateryna Kavetska is even more secretive than her husband. Her pages in social media contain no photos, notes or preferences that would give any information about her. We failed to find any of her recent photos. But we did find something interesting nevertheless.
The sole entrepreneurship of Kateryna Kavetska is registered with the phone number of Tetiana Yarova – the accountant of a popular hotel complex, Drevny grad, located near Dubliany in the Kyiv-Chop highway. The hotel is officially run by the private enterprise with the same name, belonging to Mykhailo Koval, a former deputy of the Lviv regional council. At the same time, the journalists of NGL.media found out that the hotel divides some income between sole entrepreneurs which is a classic scheme to reduce taxes.
Yarova’s phone number is indicated as a contact phone for 19 entrepreneurs at the same time, including Kavetska. The prevailing majority of them are former or active employees of the hotel. The relatives of the hotel owner are also among these entrepreneurs. In the conversation with NGL.media, Tetiana Yarova denied her involvement in Kateryna Kavetska’s sole entrepreneurship but she couldn’t explain why her phone number is stated in the registration data of Kavetskyi’s wife.
Drevny grad restaurant is located near the highway, practically in the forest, and it turned out that the land under it was obtained in a not quite lawful way. Now, the local police investigates unlawful removal of a part of this plot from the use by the SE Lisy Ukrayiny. It is significant that these very decisions on the land outside the settlement borders have been within the scope of authority of the StateGeoCadastre, headed by Kavetskyi, for years.
NGL.media didn’t succeed in getting the comments from Mykhailo Koval, the official owner of Drevny grad.
At present, Andrii Kavetskyi is still in the ward of the pre-trial detention centre, because he didn’t pay his bail of almost UAH 90 mln. The SBI continues its investigation both in the case on bribery and in the main proceedings regarding unlawful enrichment.
Authors Maria Horban and Kateryna Rodak, editor Oleh Onysko, translation Nelya Plakhota, cover Viktoria Demchuk
