Late Monday evening, September 7, Ruslan Kravchenko, the Prosecutor-General of Ukraine, announced his resignation against the background of a large corruption scandal. His direct subordinate, Serhii Kropyva, with whom Kravchenko seems to have had more than merely professional relations, was exposed for providing “protection” for illegal call centres and laundering illegal proceeds from their activity. The scheme involved the closest relatives and friends, and, judging by the records, made public by the NABU and the SAP within the “Carthage” operation, Serhii Kropyva himself was confident of unpunishability and influence of his boss, under whom this scheme has been working for about a year.
The total amount of the money, laundered via this scheme, is yet to be determined. However, a few things can be understood about the scale even now. NGL.media’s analysis shows that just the family and the closest circle of Serhii Kropyva – clearly not the main character of this story – have acquired the property worth at least UAH 120 mln.
You can step into the same prosecutor’s office twice
42-year-old Serhii Kropyva, born in Zolotonosha in the Cherkasy region, has a typical biography of a law enforcement official – he worked in the police for many years, then he worked in the cyberpolice, and in 2022, he became the head of a separate department of the Prosecutor General’s Office on investigating cybercrimes Department for the Organization and Procedural Oversight of Pretrial Investigations into Criminal Offenses that Undermine the Functioning of the Economy and the State’s Cybersecurity.
Half a year later, Serhii Kropyva suddenly quit his job and got registered as a sole entrepreneur 56.10 Acitivity of restaurants, provision of catering services; 56.21 Catering services for events. Judging by the declaration, he did pretty well: in seven months, he earned just a bit over UAH 5 mln. However, clean business seems to have held little appeal to him – unlike a public office – and in July 2023, Serhii Kropyva became the deputy head of the Odesa RMA, Oleh Kiper. He stayed in this position for two years, until there was a new chance to go back to the Prosecutor General’s Office.
Serhii Kropyva (a photo by the Odesa RMA)
In August 2025, the law, which allowed for the appointment of employees to regional prosecutor’s offices and the Prosecutor General’s Office without any competitive selection process, came into effect. That’s how Serhii Kropyva came back to Kyiv in the status of the deputy head of the Department of international cooperation at the Prosecutor General’s Office.
At that moment, he was no longer a poor man. In his income statement for 2025, Serhii Kropyva declared almost UAH 1.4 mln of the salary, UAH 283 thousand of the pension policemen have the right to retire after 25 and more years of service. As of the date of retiring from the police in 2021, Serhii Kropyva had only 20 years of service, but through the courts, he succeeded in having his years of service recalculated to 25 years and six months, USD 65.5 thousand and UAH 700 thousand in cash savings.
Although Serhii Kropyva and his wife, Iryna, have three daughters aged 6 to 13, the family didn’t have their own home. The prosecutor owns only a share in his family’s apartment in Zolotonosha, so until 2025, they officially resided in rented apartments.
But in 2025, the family settled in a house of almost 260 sq.m. in the village of Lisnyky near Kyiv. 10 hundred sq.m. worth UAH 1.6 mln and the house in these elite suburbs of Kyiv are registered in the name of the prosecutor’s mother, Valentyna Kropyva. Finally, all prosecutor’s relatives turned out to be far from poor, but we’ll talk about their wealth later.
In addition, the SAP prosecutors believe that Serhii Kropyva might own some undeclared property abroad, since he took an interest in buying a land plot in the United Arab Emirates.
Not a queen, merely the king’s wife
37-year-old Iryna Kropyva hadn’t declared almost any income prior to 2020, but after her husband was appointed the first deputy head of the Cybersecurity Department of the National Police, she decided to start business as well. In the very first year of her entrepreneurship 56.10 Activity of restaurants, provision of catering services; 56.21 Catering for events, if her husband’s declaration is to be trusted, she earned UAH 2.5 mln, and she gave birth to their third daughter. In the last six years, Iryna Kropyva earned a total of over UAH 26 mln as a sole entrepreneur.
According to the data of YouControl, in this March, she registered Power Point LLC in her name to deal with property leasing. It is noteworthy that Iryna Kropyva’s telephone number is also registered as contact data for two more companies – Shyny Dysky Service LLC and Tradedevelopment, which officially belong to other people and were registered in April-May of this year.
In 2023, Iryna Kropyva bought a new car, a Mercedes-Benz Gle 450, for almost UAH 5 mln more than USD 135 thousand as per the NBU exchange rate at the time. She doesn’t declare her own real estate, but she accumulated some cash – USD 83 thousand and UAH 2.8 mln.
“My son, my son, my angel”
The wife isn’t the only person who started entrepreneurship along with the career rise of Serhii Kropyva. His parents didn’t lag behind. They seem to still live in Zolotonosha in the Cherkasy region.
Valentyna Kropyva and her son, Serhii (a Facebook photo)
Valentyna Kropyva, the official’s mother, became a sole entrepreneur in August 2021 and started “photocopying”. It coincided with the time when her son practically headed the Cyberpolice Department of the National Police of Ukraine. In a matter of months, she acquired a land plot and a garden cottage with an area of almost 260 sq.m. in the village of Lisnyky near Kyiv. That’s where her son’s family got settled, although Serhii Kropyva stated in the declaration that the building of the house wasn’t completed. The NABU estimates this property at UAH 3.82 mln although the specialized websites state the market value of a house in this village with a similar area, a pool, and the land plot at UAH 40 mln.
At the end of 2020, prior to the registration of sole entrepreneurship, Valentyna Kropyva was registered as an owner of an apartment in a Kyiv RC “Comfort Town”. At that time, one-room studio apartments without any repair work cost over UAH 1.3 mln here.
In the same year, Valentyna Kropyva became an owner of two more apartments. In Cherkasy, she became a registered owner of an apartment with an area of 53 sq.m. in a residential district, and of a three-room apartment in another RC “Faina Town” in Kyiv where the price of such property starts at UAH 6.64 mln.
In 2022, Vasyl Kropyva, the father of our main character, got registered as a sole entrepreneur too. Without much imagination, he, like his wife, chose “photocopying” as his area of business interest. Vasyl Kropyva is an official owner of two land plots and a house of 291 sq.m. in Odesa, a 15 minutes’ walk from the “Golden shore” city beach. The cost of similar houses in this district is within UAH 4-10 mln.
Vasyl Kropyva is also registered as an owner of real estate in Kyiv – for instance, an apartment in RC “UNIT.Home”, one of the most expensive residential complexes in Kyiv, where the developer’s cost of a one-room apartment starts at UAH 7.86 mln. Since last year, Vasyl Kropyva is an owner of non-residential premises in Boyarka, in the Kyiv region. Now a fitness centre is located there.
Business with “comfort” for the parents-in-law
Halyna and Oleksandr Rohovchenko – Serhii Kropyva’s parents-in-law – also decided to start business and buy real estate starting with 2021. In 2021, 61-year-old Halyna Rohovchenko bought three small non-residential premises premises with an area of 5.9 sq.m., 4.5 sq.m., 21.3 sq.m. respectively in the same RC “Faina Town”, where her in-law, Valentyna Kropyva, bought real estate.
The legal address of the Rohovchenkos entrepreneurs is specified as another apartment in the very same RC “Faina Town”, which is registered in the name of Liudmyla Horobets, who is a sister of Halyna Rohovchenko, and thus the aunt of Serhii Kropyva’s wife. Another non-residential premises with an area of 41.5 sq.m. in RC “Faina Town” officially belongs to Oleksandr Rohovchenko, Serhii Kropyva’s father-in-law. One year ago, he was also registered as an owner of a one-room apartment in RC “Great” at the bank of the Dnipro. In the primary market, the price of such unfurnished apartment starts at UAH 3.3 mln.
It should be noted that in all the state registers Serhii Kropyva’s father-in-law and mother-in-law are stated without the patronymic name, which may be an attempt to conceal the data about the relatives.
All the sole entrepreneurs are under Sasha’s wing
Last February, Ortigo LLC, whose founder is specified as Vasyl Kropyva, Serhii Kropyva’s father took a bank loan for the amount of UAH 7 mln on the security of six apartments in the Odesa region Since December 2025, the access to the data of the state register of real estate of legal entities is closed, so it is not possible to see exact addresses now, just the region. At the same time, these apartments belong not to Ortigo LLC, but to another company – Agency for Investment Development and Real Estate Transactions LLC. However, both companies – the borrower and the lender – are directly related, because the co-owner of both companies is Oleksandr Dydych, the husband of Serhii Kropyva’s sister, Viktoria.
Viktoria and Oleksandr Dydych (a VK photo)
Viktoria Dydych works at a prosecutor’s office too, but in the Cherkasy region, the place of birth for the entire family. Since 2016, she has held the position of the deputy head of the Department of procedural management at the prosecutor’s office in the Cherkasy region.
Last year, Viktoria Dydych even took part in the educational trip for Ukrainian prosecutors to Rome, organized by the EU Advisory Mission. “It is important for such events to create a common space for professional development based on common values and standards of justice,” she was quoted on the website of the EUAM Ukraine. Serhii Kropyva’s sister attended this event together with Yelyzaveta Ivakhnenko, her brother’s mistress. In a group photo, both women even pose together.
Viktoria Dydych and Yelyzaveta Ivakhnenko on an educational trip to Rome in October 2025 (a photo by the EUAM Ukraine)
Oleksandr Dydych takes an active part in the family business. In addition to Ortigo LLC, where the major share belongs to Serhii Kropyva’s father Vasyl Kropyva owns 70 % of the company, Dydych – 30 %, since 2020, he is a registered sole entrepreneur providing legal services. Since 2021, he has a certificate of an attorney, issued in Odesa. The phone number in contact data for his sole entrepreneurship coincides with that of Serhii Kropyva’s father.
But Dydych isn’t just a passive co-owner of the family business. As it turned out during the meeting of the HACC, he is one of the key members of the group. The investigators believe that Dydych’s main task was to launder the money that came from “protecting” illegal call centres. He also maintained all the “shadow accounting” including the activity of fictitious sole entrepreneurs. According to the investigators’ data, in private conversations Kropyva repeatedly said that all the sole entrepreneurs were “under Sasha’s (that is Dydych’s) wing”.
It seems that now Oleksandr Dydych is merely formally married to Viktoria Dydych. Officially, the couple is not divorced, but she lives with Maksym Shtompel, the deputy head of the Cherkasy regional prosecutor’s office. That’s why during the court hearing, the SAP prosecutor called Shtompel “an indirect relative” of Serhii Kropyva. In the investigators’ opinion, the appointment of Shtompel to the Cherkasy prosecutor’s office in April 2026 could have been lobbied by Kropyva himself.
An 83-year-old owner of apartments in Bukovel
As a matter of fact, the scale of relatives’ involvement in the scheme is amazing. For instance, during the court hearing on the selection of a preventive measure, they mentioned the aunt of Serhii Kropyva’s wife – Liudmyla Petrivna Horobets. “Listen, has Liuda been set going?” the SAP prosecutor cited a conversation between Kropyva, his driver, and Dydych.
Liuda was set going indeed. One month prior to this conversation, on February 26, 2026, she was registered as a sole entrepreneur, specializing in “Activity of restaurants, provision of catering services”. However, back in 2024, “Liuda” was registered as an owner of the premises of a shop in Kyiv with an area of almost 200 sq.m., and in 2025 – almost 50 sq.m. more of “non-residential space”.
Liudmyla Horobets refused to talk to NGL.media because she “has neither time nor desire” to do so.
But the most interesting things turned out to be hidden under the name of Yevhenia Horobets, a 83-year-old mother of Liudmyla Horobets. In addition to her sudden registration as a sole entrepreneur this June, in May she suddenly became an owner of two apartments and a parking place in the elite hotel Glacier Premium Apartments in the centre of Bukovel.
The extracts from the real estate register demonstrated that H. Rohovchenko (who might be Halyna Rohovchenko, the prosecutor’s mother-in-law) bought the ownership rights for this real estate back in 2024, but several months ago, she transferred these rights to Yevhenia Horobets.
A muse, a queen, and a mere live-in partner
The persona of the prosecutor was somewhat obscured by his mistress, Yelyzaveta Ivakhnenko, whose preventive measure has already been imposed by the HACC – 60 days of detention with the possible bail of UAH 20 mln. A 24-year-old girl, referred to as “Muse” in the materials of the anti-corruption bodies, is suspected of participating in laundering the property worth UAH 21.6 mln obtained through criminal means.
Yelyzaveta Ivakhnenko graduated from the Odesa Law Academy in 2024 and stayed there for about one year, working as a laboratory assistant and serving as an acting associate dean of the Faculty of Cybersecurity and Information Technology “on a volunteer basis”.
In autumn of 2025, Yelyzaveta Ivakhnenko was already introduced as an advisor to the Director of the Prosecutor’s Training Centre of Ukraine. But they refused to talk about her work there and “refrained from commenting”. NGL.media sent an official inquiry to the Training centre but we haven’t got any response as of the moment of this publication.
Yelyzaveta Ivakhnenko in the dock at the High Anti-Corruption Court during the hearing on selecting a preventive measure for her, September 7, 2026 (a photo by Snizhana Mazur, Suspilne)
Judging by the audio records, made public by the NABU and SAP, and available pictures, Yelyzaveta Ivakhnenko had a luxurious lifestyle. In the NABU records, she mentioned Porsche, Loro Piana an expensive Italian brand of clothes and shoes, bracelets, watches, bags, fur coats. Although she deleted her Instagram account, some photos (like the one with a bag, similar to Louis Vuitton, and a belt with the same brand logo) were posted by her mother in Odnoklassniki in 2022. The anti-corruption centre “Mezha” kept all the data of Ivakhnenko’s Instagram account.
Last October, Ivakhnenko became an owner of non-residential real estate with an area of over 153 sq.m. in Pechersk in Kyiv. A very similar property at the same address is now being sold for USD 420 thousand. She also owns a car, a Mercedes-Benz EQE of 2023, which was on sale for USD 60 thousand last year.
It was only in last July that Yelyzaveta got registered as a sole entrepreneur in the “sphere of law”. Several months ago, her mother, Tetiana Ivakhnenko, decided to follow her example, but started her business in “photocopying”. According to the SAP data, in April-June of this year, Tetiana Ivakhnenko received UAH 1.78 mln on her account, though she did no actual entrepreneurship activity. The NABU investigators also claim that this January she bought an apartment in Odesa.
NGL.media found out that Karyna, a 29-year-old elder sister of Yelyzaveta, who is a deputy director for educational issues at the Odesa municipal “European” lyceum, also became an owner of an apartment in Odesa with an area of almost 60 sq.m. last December. According to YouControl data, she also owns a car, a Tesla Model 3 of 2020. Karyna Ivakhnenko didn’t respond to NGL.media’s request for comments on the origin of this property.
What is known about the “Carthage” operation?
On September 5, the NABU The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and the SAP The Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office published an investigation of a criminal group headed by a high official from the Prosecutor’s General Office, which “protected” illegal call centres and laundered the money via the fictitious business of their relatives and invested it in the property.
The scheme involved a total of four key figures – Serhii “Kanzler” Kropyva, his accomplice Yelyzaveta “Muse” Ivakhnenko, his driver Serhii “Kamrad” Kutsyi, and Kropyva’s relative, Oleksandr “Flash” Dydych. The law enforcement bodies call Serhii Kropyva the organizer of this scheme, according to the NABU’s version, he was a confidant of Ruslan Kravchenko, the Prosecutor-General. In the audio records, made public by the NABU, Serhii Kropyva discussed illegal schemes on “protecting” so-called business in call centres and often referred to “the boss” and “Andriiovych” The patronymic name of the now former Prosecutor-General, Ruslan Kravchenko, is Andriiovych. During the hearing of the HACC on September 6, Mykola Karas, the SAP prosecutor, said that Serhii Kropyva actually coordinated the repair works in the house of the Prosecutor General and organized his birthday in Madrid during a business trip. Against the background of this scandal, Ruslan Kravchenko resigned and called it a “political decision”. He denies any involvement in this scheme.
The HACC sent Serhii Kropyva to the pre-trial detention centre with the alternative of a bail of UAH 120 mln, Yelyzaveta Ivakhnenko – UAH 20 mln of a bail, and Serhii Kutsyi – UAH 3 mln of a bail. The court detained Oleksandr Dydych with a possible bail of UAH 15 mln.
Viktoria Eismunt and Aliona Malichenko with the involvement of Oleksandra Hubytska, editor Oleh Onysko, translation Nelya Plakhota, cover Viktoria Demchuk
