Nine months after the scandal, Mikhail Terentyev, a figure in the "Komarnitsky tapes," continues to lead the Kyiv City Council's land committee. Who supported him and how?
More than nine months have passed since the "Komarnitsky tapes" were released. Some of the defendants have been dismissed from their positions, others have been placed under suspicion, and Mikhail Terentyev has managed to both spend time in pretrial detention and return to work on the Kyiv City Council, writes Amina Likar of the Chesno Movement.
DOSSIER : Mikhail Terentyev: Bridges of Kyiv Corruption. PART 1
From the beginning of his term in 2020 until the end of 2024, the deputy did not miss a single plenary session. Operation Clean City was the first and only reason for his absence. However, Terentyev's legislative activity was less significant—only 21 initiatives in five years.
The leader in the votes for the so-called "toilet schemes" still heads the land commission and will likely remain on the board after a possible change of its chairman.
However, should a figure involved in one of the most high-profile corruption scandals remain on the Kyiv City Council, influence order in the capital, and serve on a key committee?
How is Terentyev still on the Kyiv City Council?
The "Clean City" scandal became publicly known in early February. Then, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) announced they had uncovered schemes to seize land in the capital. Among the suspects and key figures was Mykhailo Terentyev. The deputy appeared on the "Komarnitsky tapes" while coordinating an agenda item with his "supervisor" and searching for new land plots.
Photo: Bihus.Info
Moreover, Mykhailo Terentyev was one of the leaders in voting for the "toilet schemes," as noted in an analysis by the "Honestly" Movement. As a reminder, bills to abolish these "schemes" later appeared on the Kyiv City Council website, but they were never adopted. Some deputies noted that this could "remove the elements of a crime from the investigation."
Mayor Vitali Klitschko also responded to the land scandal. On March 13, at a plenary session, he announced that Mikhail Terentyev, along with several other defendants, had been dismissed from his position as director of the Engineering Center municipal enterprise. Regarding his parliamentary mandate, the mayor noted:
"The UDAR party faction also began the process of recalling him from the Kyiv City Council (since he is suspected of criminal proceedings).
A few days later, Terentyev, along with other defendants in the case, was released from pretrial detention on bail of 20 million hryvnias. According to former Kyiv City Council Secretary Volodymyr Bondarenko , the deputy also submitted a resignation from the UDAR faction. Terentyev first appeared on the roll call lists among independents at the April 15 meeting, but was still absent.
The case to strip him of his mandate never materialized. Despite the fact that UDAR made a decision at its party congress in late May, Mykhailo Terentyev soon appealed it in court, effectively temporarily blocking his recall until the case is heard. Therefore, the territorial election commission and Kyiv City Council cannot strip him of his mandate.
Part of the ruling on case No. 320/28451/25
Therefore, in October 2025, the head of the land commission fully returned to his parliamentary duties and appeared in the session hall after several months of absence. It should be noted that even during this period, he continued his activities.
Photo: Evgenia Kuleba's Facebook post
In June, former Servant of the People MP Yevhenia Kuleba reported that Mykhailo Terentyev's signature appeared on a document redirecting the construction project on Peizazhnaya Alley from the environmental commission to the land commission. This means that despite his absence from the session hall, the MP continued to use his position to advance the interests of developers and oversee controversial initiatives.
Imitation of activity in the Kyiv City Council by Mykhailo Terentyev
With the figure involved in one of the capital's most high-profile corruption scandals returning to the Kyiv City Council and still heading one of its key committees, Chestno analyzed his parliamentary performance since the beginning of his term. As a reminder, Mykhailo Terentyev has been elected to the city council for the third time: in 2014 and 2015, he served on the 7th and 8th convocations of the Kyiv City Council as a member of the UDAR and Solidarity parties. And in 2020, he immediately became head of the land committee.
Terentyev's attendance at plenary sessions has been excellent over the years—not a single absence from December 2020 to early February 2025. The only reason for his absence from the session hall was the investigation into his involvement with Clean City, and he missed eight of the 12 sessions held this year.
Mikhail Terentyev's legislative activity, however, was strikingly different. Despite his status as head of a key committee and his many years of experience in the position, the deputy submitted only 21 initiatives.
Photo: Kyiv City Council website
It's noteworthy that all of them were registered in collaboration with other MPs, rather than independently. The vast majority of appeals to the Verkhovna Rada, the Cabinet of Ministers, or the president were submitted by MPs either as members of the coalition or as individuals representing the UDAR faction.
In particular, all initiatives in 2021 were merely appeals of various natures: regarding the need to implement a mechanism for the procurement of medicines, increasing the size of state medical care, or resolving the situation with the draft law "On the City of Kyiv – the Capital of Ukraine."
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Terentyev's virtually zero legislative activity stood in stark contrast to the volume of land issues being considered by the Kyiv City Council at the time. Previously, "land packages" were a regular problem, with the deputy himself announcing projects without specifying the land plot's location, solely by cadastral number, and sometimes announcing them in whole blocks.
Then, 2021 became the year with the highest number of land issues, with nearly 5000 projects on the agendas of daytime meetings. Some of these were added to this number through the procedure for including urgent matters, so the number is potentially even higher. More projects were categorized as "denial of permit for land management project development"—a plan for the specific use of a land plot.
It's worth noting that 15 of Terentyev's submitted initiatives were adopted by deputies. Eight of these were appeals from the Kyiv City Council, as mentioned earlier. The only "specialized" decisions were made only in 2024: the development of a detailed plan for the Solomyansky district of Kyiv and the resolution of the transfer of ownership and use of municipal land to persons under Russian influence.
The only draft law , 2025, appeared on the Kyiv City Council website in late October. It concerns the creation of a temporary commission to review the implementation of restoration projects for facilities damaged as a result of Russian aggression. More than 30 deputies from all factions submitted the proposal.
The draft resolution card is on the Kyiv City Council website.
Attempts to "revive" the land commission
Before returning to the session hall, Mykhailo Terentyev attempted to convene the land commission—one of the capital's key commissions, which had effectively suspended its work after the Komarnitsky tapes were made public. An agenda with nearly a hundred items appeared on the Kyiv City Council website, 93 of which were classified as "For Official Use Only."
Part of the agenda for the meeting of the land commission on October 8, 2025
This was also reported by European Solidarity MP Victoria Ptashnik , who later attended the scheduled meeting via live broadcast. However, neither Mikhail Terentyev himself nor most of the land commission members showed up.
"The members of the land commission, that is, Mr. Terentyev and his team, called the people together and announced that their questions would supposedly be considered—knowing that there wouldn't be a quorum," Ptashnik noted.
Indeed, people were invited—representatives of the NGO "Protect Protasov Yar" were present in the hall, awaiting an extension of the decision to purchase the reserve's land. As a reminder, this decision was finally made at the end of October, when the "tacit consent" of the inactive land commission expired.
The commission attempted to hold an extraordinary meeting on October 28, but not at Mykhailo Terentyev's initiative. The regulations on standing committees of the Kyiv City Council stipulate that they may meet "upon the written request of at least one-third of the members"—and despite the signatures collected, a quorum was never reached.
Source: Kyiv City Council website
The capital's mayor himself recently attempted to revive the land commission. Specifically, he authored a bill to replace the current chairman of the land commission with Oles Maliarevich , a member of parliament for the UDAR party and an active member of the Achilles Regiment.
It is significant that the explanatory note to the project contains no mention of the scandalous Operation Clean City or of Mikhail Terentyev himself, who is a dubious candidate for further membership in the commission.
Speaking to Chestno, Oles Maliarevich noted about the potential position: "It will be really difficult for me—combining military service and the commission. But we are a collegial body, and right now the situation is that it's either me or no one else. No one wants to touch on this topic. But this is an important commission, and it needs to work."
Let's recall that, in addition to the difficulty of combining military service with chairing the commission, Oles Maliarevych supported 13 of the 15 "toilet schemes" and did not vote for the new "anti-corruption land regulation." In his response to "Chesno," the deputy noted that "the screens went dark" during the review of the draft.
The Kyiv City Council's Land Commission is currently in a critical state. First of all, it only met twice this year—in early January and in April, when Oles Maliarevych himself temporarily chaired the meeting. Despite the existence of an alternative draft, Mykhailo Terentyev still chairs the commission, even after his expulsion from the UDAR faction and an unsuccessful attempt to strip him of his parliamentary mandate. Consequently, he still exerts influence over the review of the drafts.
Even if the Kyiv City Council adopts the existing initiative at the next plenary session and replaces the mayor with Oles Maliarevych, the problem will not be fully resolved, as Terentyev will remain on the commission and will be involved in the allocation of capital land.
Moreover, the land commission requires regular work and frequent meetings, which is difficult to reconcile with Maliarevich's military service in "Achilles." Among the other commission members, leaders in support of the "toilet schemes" remain: Dmitry Kalinichenko , Anatoly Shapoval , Elena Ovramenko , and another defendant in the "Komarnitsky tapes," Elena Marchenko.
Nine months after the land scandal, no organizational changes have occurred. It's worth noting that the Regulations on Standing Committees stipulate that if the chairperson is unable to perform their duties, their functions are assumed by the first deputy chairperson—the land committee has three members.
Photo: Regulations on the standing committees of the Kyiv City Council
The commission can easily resume its work if the capital's deputies so desire. The same applies to the replacement of the chairman and the removal of Mikhail Terentyev—this is a sign of the times, so as not to return to "land grabs."
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