In three years, Star Energy Trade LLC, a previously unknown company, became one of the key suppliers of electric energy to municipal enterprises in several regions of Ukraine. As of early 2026, the company signed contracts for almost UAH 1.7 bln and supplies electricity to water service companies, district heating providers, and regional police stations.
Officially, the company is owned by the massage parlour owner from Kremenchuk and a former utility worker. But NGL.media found out that Yevhen Korf, a deputy of the Poltava regional council, may be the figure behind this company.
Anime and massage
Star Energy Trade LLC was registered in May 2022 by Viktoria Liudmyrska, a 24-year-old resident of Kyiv. There isn’t much information about her, but in social networks, she posts pictures in bright costumes of Japanese anime characters – she enjoys costume play.
Official founder of Star Energy Trade LLC Victoria Lyudmyrska (photo Bluesky)
Half a year after being founded, the company received the first large contract from the Lubny water service company for UAH 18.2 mln. The municipal company signed a direct agreement with the novice company, giving its consent to pay one hryvnia more per one kilowatt than other clients in the region. At first look, the difference seems insignificant, but considering the procurement volume – over 4 mln kilowatt/h – there is a probable overpayment of UAH 4 mln.
Two days before signing the agreement with the Lubny water service company, the company was restructured: Liudmyrska shifted to the position of the director, and Iryna Seriohova, who owns a massage parlour in Kremenchuk, became the company’s sole owner. “A businesswoman. A mother. A friend,” she describes herself on Instagram.
Iryna Seriohova regularly advertises her massage parlor on Instagram
Several years ago, Seriohova was a journalist of the municipal TV channel “Kremenchutski Novyny” which mainly highlighted the activity of the municipal authorities and deputies. After her dismissal in June 2022, she tried to create her own media project, but then she got registered as a sole entrepreneur and focused on the beauty sphere.
In the documents, submitted by Star Energy Trade to the tenders, there is an order on employing Seriohova full-time with a salary of UAH 16 thousand. At the same time, in social networks, she still actively promotes massage services.
And though at first glance, there is nothing in common between a costume player and a massage provider, the two of them lay the foundation for an energy business that brought over UAH 21 mln during the first year of its work.
A new leader
In December 2023, Star Energy Trade LLC got a new Director General, Oleh Popenko. Liudmyrska, who previously held this position, left this business completely. Half a year later, Oleh Popenko became the co-owner of the company in a 50/50 ratio with Iryna Seriohova.
55-Year-old Oleh Popenko has extensive work experience in the municipal sector. In 2014, he headed ME Kremenchuk-Invest, in 2016-2019, he was the financial director of the municipal enterprise in residential property management in Kyiv. Then he headed the committee of residential and municipal utilities in the Public Council at the KCSA and worked as an advisor to the deputy head of the KCSA. In 2020, he founded the NGO Union of consumers of municipal utilities and, since then, he promotes himself in social networks as an expert in issues of the residential and municipal utilities and energy.
Covers of videos that Oleh Popenko publishes on YouTube
While in 2023, Star Energy Trade signed contracts for UAH 21 mln, with Popenko’s arrival, the volumes increased 80 times.
The clients of Star Energy Trade are only municipal utilities and enterprises in several regions: OKVP Dnipro-Kirovohrad (the main importer of water supply and disposal services in Kropyvnytskyi), Teplokommunenerho in Oleksandria, Poltavavodokanal, Poltavateploenerho, the Main police department in Poltava region, etc.
As of early 2026, Star Energy Trade has already signed contracts for almost UAH 1.7 bln.
Crisis
One of the largest clients of Star Energy Trade LLC is Poltavavodokanal, which signed contracts with the company for almost UAH 560 mln. This regional municipal enterprise, which provides water to the residents of Poltava and the neighbouring communities, consumes 3.5 mln kilowatt/h every month.
In spring 2025, the enterprise suffered a financial crisis – the debts for electricity supply exceeded UAH 40 mln. In May, the debts amounted to UAH 50 mln.
In the words of Oleksandr Bilenkyi, the reason lies in the fact that the state-approved tariffs are frozen at the level of 2022, although the cost of electric energy has increased at least twice. Due to this difference, Poltavavodokanal spends about UAH 20 mln every month.
Oleh Popenko appears at the same briefing with Bilenkyi and is presented as an expert in the issues of residential and municipal utilities. They both insisted that the problem may be solved only if the state is involved – either via setting a beneficial electricity price for water supply and disposal companies or via compensating the difference in tariffs.
At the same time, neither the head of the regional council, nor Popenko mentioned that at that time, he was the Director General of Star Energy Trade LLC, which supplied electricity to Poltavavodokanal for two months already.
Oleksandr Bilenkyi and Oleh Popenko during a briefing on May 19, 2025 (photo “Poltavshchyna”)
However, the financial reports of Poltavavodokanal demonstrate that problems started much earlier. According to the YouControl data, the enterprise was unprofitable at least since 2017, and the accounts payable to suppliers constantly exceeded UAH 130 mln. Poltavavodokanal entered the spring of 2024 with debts, mainly covered by budgetary inputs.
The increase in electricity prices only aggravated the crisis. In 2024, the tangible expenses of the enterprise – the article, containing payments for electricity – increased by UAH 79 mln and amounted to UAH 337 mln. The financial reports of Poltavavodokanal from 2017 to 2024 show the largest annual surplus for the entire available history of the enterprise. This sharp rise coincided with the year when the Star Energy Trade became the main electricity supplier.
The questions arise: Who had supplied electricity prior to this company? Were the previous debts paid? The open data in Prozorro contain a gap: prior to Star Energy Trade, there has been no public procurement of electric energy by Poltavavodokanal. In response to the inquiry of NGL.media, the administration of the municipal enterprise refused to explain, emphasizing that being a critical infrastructure object they are not bound to disclose any information regarding electricity provision.
How can one explain this rapid success of an unknown company in the state budget procurement of electric energy, and why does its Director General come to the anti-crisis briefings as an independent expert? NGL.media found the first hint in the telephone number of Iryna Seriohova, the official owner of 50% of Star Energy Trade LLC.
“Korf’s assistant”
In GetContact application, which defines the way people name phone numbers in their phone books, Iryna Seriohova is named “Korf’s Assistant Ira” and “Iryna, Korf’s Press-Service”.
50-Year-old Yevhen Korf is the deputy of the Poltava regional council from Kremenchuk. In 2020, he was elected to the regional council from the Oppositional Platform For Life. When this party was banned, he entered the faction “For Poltava region”. He heads the permanent commission of the regional council in ecology and sustainable nature management.
Yevhen Korf (photo of Poltava Regional Council)
Korf owns and manages some companies in Ukraine and Poland, most of which produce and repair energy equipment. But his name is not among the founders or directors of Star Energy Trade. Instead, he owns NVP Energo-Plus company, and for some reason, Tetiana Nenasheva, the lawyer of this company, asked for the extract from the state register of legal entities, required for participation in tenders, in June 2024, on behalf of Star Energy Trade.
A month later, this extract appeared in the tender proposal from Star Energy Trade, which the company submitted to the tender of Poltavavodokanal.
In May 2022, again – at the time Star Energy Trade was created – Yevhen Korf founded Dovira and Dopomoha [Trust and Help] charitable foundation together with Viktoria Popenko, the wife of Oleh Popenko, who was soon to become the Director General and then the co-owner of the energy company.
Alina Bilenka, the wife of Oleksandr Bilenkyi, the head of the Poltava regional council, received about UAH 150 thousand from NVTOV Peretvoriuvalna tekhnika [Transformation equipment] in 2024 – this is the company, co-owned by Yevhen Korf. It is worth reminding that it was at the time when Oleksandr Bilenkyi organized anti-crisis briefings, in which Popenko appeared as an “expert”, not disclosing his connection to the supplying company.
Yevhen Korf is not among the official owners or managers of Star Energy Trade but as a deputy, he is actively promoting the company’s activity. Last September, he personally voted for an appeal to the President and the government requesting that Poltavavodokanal be granted a state subsidy . This appeal specified directly that the debt to Star Energy Trade was UAH 33.6 mln.
In March 2024, Yevhen Korf took part in the meeting of the working group of the regional council on the issues of tariffs of Poltavavodokanal and Poltavateploenerho, where the complicated financial state of municipal utilities was discussed. A month later, Star Energy Trade received the first contract from Poltavavodokanal, and half a year later – a contract from Poltavateploenerho.
In 2023, Yevhen Korf became the owner of the Polish company, NPP Energo-Plus Europe, the following year, he got another Polish company, Twerd Energo-Plus. It coincided with the period when Star Energy Trade got more contracts with the municipal enterprises in the Poltava region.
NPP Energo-Plus Europe was featured in the investigations of the contracts of the state Ukrhydroenergo, bypassing Prozorro. The journalists paid attention to the fact that the contract with the foreign company allowed for the legal transfer of finances abroad, away from the control of Ukrainian regulators. At the same time, the actual supplier is still a Ukrainian enterprise, but the price difference gets accumulated in the foreign structure.
NGL.media asked the co-owners of Star Energy Trade for comments. On hearing the question, Iryna Seriohova answered, “Call Oleh Ivanovych [Popenko].” After the request for a personal conversation with her, Seriohova put the receiver down.
Oleh Popenko refused to talk on the phone and asked us to send him an official inquiry, yet he failed to respond to it for two weeks.
Yevhen Korf responded with lengthy legal comments, yet didn’t answer any of the addressed questions. During a personal telephone conversation, he remarked that he had already said what he had wanted to say and had no desire to continue the conversation.
The author Alona Malichenko, editor Oleh Onysko, translation Nelya Plakhota, cover Viktoria Demchuk
