Not all appointments to supervisory boards comply with the law.
Following the release of some materials in the Midas case concerning high-level corruption, particularly in the energy sector, the president fired his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak.
Following this, a large-scale restructuring of the supervisory boards of strategic state-owned companies under Yermak's influence began. The CHESNO movement analyzed who currently serves on these supervisory boards, ZN.UA reports.
It's worth noting that supervisory boards appoint company managers, approve multi-billion dollar investments, oversee finances, and determine company development strategies. These strategies ultimately influence Ukraine's energy, transportation, banking, and defense industries.
The supervisory board system should be independent. However, it currently exhibits fairly consistent personnel patterns. Specifically, as CHESNO discovered, the same people serve on the supervisory boards of several strategic enterprises, despite the fact that such combination of positions is prohibited by Ukrainian law. Moreover, people connected through their work in government regularly appear at various companies. These include Yermak's former advisor, Serhiy Leshchenko, and presidential advisor, Vladislav Vlasyuk. Furthermore, allegations have been made regarding a member of the supervisory board of Sens Bank regarding the possible influence of people from Yermak's former circle.
NNEGC Energoatom
It was corruption at this company that the first so-called "Mindich tapes," published as part of the Midas case, dealt with. Amid the scandal surrounding Energoatom, Yermak was also fired, after which the composition of the supervisory board was changed. Today, it includes:
- Former head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, Rumina Velshi, is the board's chair;
- former Westinghouse CEO Patrick Fragman is chairman of the board;
- corporate governance and energy expert Laura Garbenčiūtė Bakienė;
- French diplomat and international politics expert Brice Bouillon;
representative of the Ministry of Energy Maxim Malashkin; - Deputy Minister of Economy, Environment and Agriculture Daria Marchak;
- Deputy Minister of Economy, Environment and Agriculture Vitaliy Kindrativ.
NEC "Ukrenergo"
According to a response to CHESNO's request, at the end of June the company's supervisory board included:
- Independent Member Jeppe Sebastian Kofod - Chairman of the Board;
- Independent Member Jan Henrik Montell;
- Independent Member Luigi de Francisci;
- Independent Member Patrick Roland Graichen;
- State representative Yuriy Boyko;
- State representative Nikolai Brusenko;
- State representative Yegor Pereligin.
Patrick Greichen, however, is involved in a political scandal in Germany. He was placed under suspicion for his involvement in the selection of a candidate for the position of head of the energy agency Dena, which was chosen by his close friend, Michael Schafer.
PJSC "Ukrhydroenergo"
CHESNO received a response from the company to its request for a list of supervisory board members. However, a few days later, the government terminated the powers of five members simultaneously. The reason was the expiration of their terms. Therefore, the company's supervisory board currently consists of:
- State representative Vitaly Petruk;
- State representative Eduard Denisov;
Petruk was Deputy Minister of Economy. When the scandal erupted over the details of the Midas case, he was a member of Energoatom's supervisory board. Denisov heads the Yuzhny Marine Oil Terminal state enterprise.
JSC "Ukrainian Energy Machines"
- Yaroslav Dikovitsky - Chairman of the Council;
- Valery Omelchuk - Deputy Chairman of the Council;
- Evgeny Gorkunov.
At the same time, Dikovitsky has also headed the supervisory board of JSC Ukrainian Distribution Networks since March 2026.
JSC "Energy Company of Ukraine"
The company's supervisory board consists of five members:
- Independent Member Peter Stiles is Chairman of the Council;
- Independent member, top manager of the Turkish energy distribution company Abdullah Koksal;
- independent member, chairman of the supervisory board of the state enterprise "Prozorro.Sales" Ilya Mikhailov;
- state representative, lawyer Yulia Kramarenko;
- State representative, former deputy chairman of the State Property Fund Igor Timoshenko.
Supervisory Boards. Transport
"Ukrzaliznytsia"
UZ is Ukraine's largest carrier, a state monopoly with tens of thousands of employees. The company has billions in turnover, and its supervisory board has been embroiled in scandals for years, primarily concerning its members' remuneration. Currently, the UZ supervisory board includes:
- State representative, Deputy Minister of Finance Alexander Kava;
- state representative, former adviser to Ermak, current freelance adviser to the OP Sergei Leshchenko;
- State representative, head of the supervisory board of Ukroboronprom David Lomzharia;
- Independent Member - Former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure and Development of Poland, former European Commissioner for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, Brussels-based think tank Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) Elżbieta Ewa Bienkowska;
- Independent member, scientist and logistics expert with experience at Deutsche Bahn, head of the previous supervisory and current boards of UZ Gepard Hafer;
- independent member, former acting chairman of the State Fiscal Service and current partner of the investment company SARS Maxim Moklyak;
- Independent member, executive director of the NGO "Ukrainian Institute of the Future" Anatoly Amelin.
Supervisory Boards. Forestry
State Enterprise "Forests of Ukraine"
CHESNO noted that this is the only company whose supervisory board is completely independent. Its members include:
- Member of the Board of the Canada-Ukraine Chamber of Commerce Markiyan Vitvitsky; former Chairman of the Supervisory Board and CEO of JSC Latvian State Forests, member of the Executive Board and Audit Committee of the European Association of State Forest Managers Roberts Stripnieks;
- Director General of the Eastern Office of Finnish Industry, former member of the supervisory board of Oschadbank, expert and consultant to the IMF and the World Bank, Janne Harunpää;
- Irina Gruzinskaya, head of the Cohesion and Agricultural Policy sector at the BRDO analytical center.
Supervisory Boards. Banking Sector
Ukrainian legislation stipulates that the supervisory board of a state-owned bank must consist of nine members.
JSC Sens Bank
The state, represented by the Ministry of Finance, owns 100% of its shares. The institution's supervisory board includes:
- Nikolay Gladishenko - Chairman of the Council;
- Petr Novak - Deputy Chairman;
- Alexander Shchur;
- Oleg Mistyuk;
- Peter Novak;
- Michael Weinstein;
- Vitaly Zinnikov.
Until the end of July, the supervisory board included Andrey Svistun and Vladislav Vlasyuk. Svistun was deputy chairman.
Sens Bank is currently at the center of a high-profile political scandal surrounding the supervisory boards of state-owned enterprises. It concerns Mykola Gladishenko. In May, at a meeting of the Verkhovna Rada's Temporary Special Commission, Yaroslav Zheleznyak, a member of parliament from the Golos party, stated that Sens Bank was under the influence of individuals associated with businessman and presidential friend Timur Mindich and Yermak. Gladishev denied this and filed a petition to resign from his position as chairman of the supervisory board for the time necessary to clarify the circumstances surrounding the accusation. However, a response to CHESNO's inquiry stated that, as of the end of June 2026, Gladishenko still chaired the bank's supervisory board.
Meanwhile, in 2020, Vlasyuk served as a freelance adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Since 2022, he has headed Yermak-McFaul, and since 2024, he has served as the president's advisor and authorized representative for sanctions policy.
JSC Oschadbank
The bank's supervisory board includes:
- Vadim Lavrenchuk - Chairman of the Council;
- Independent Member Michal Krupinski;
- Independent Member Philip George Heasley;
- Independent Member Juan Enrique Pes Calot;
- Independent Member Elizabeth Jane Nelson;
- State representative Roza Tapanova;
- State representative Yulia Pashko;
- State representative Nikolai Brusenko.
The latter also represents the state on the supervisory board of Ukrenergo. At the same time, Tapanova was among the first to announce her willingness to contribute to Yermak's bail when he was sent to pretrial detention. She has also served on the supervisory board of Oschadbank for the second consecutive term. And since November 2022, Tapanova has been a member of the supervisory board of Ukrenergo.
JSC CB PrivatBank
It is the country's largest bank, 100% of whose shares are owned by the state, represented by the Cabinet of Ministers. The bank's supervisory board includes:
- former chairman of the supervisory board of one of the leading banks in the Baltic region, Nils Melngailis;
- Chairman of the Audit Committee Nadir Sheikh;
- former head of the board of Deutsche Bank in Romania Mihai Ionescu;
- Federico Russo, with 38 years of experience at UniCredit Group;
- Vladimir Litvin;
- Artem Shevalev - Deputy Chairman of the Council;
- Julia Metzger;
- Sergey Alekseenko.
CHESNO noted that Yulia Metzger's husband, Yevgeny Metzger , became chairman of the board of Ukreximbank in February 2020, where his wife worked as a lawyer. And in October 2021, he found himself at the center of a scandal when he ordered his employees to attack journalists from "Schemes . "
There is one vacant seat on PrivatBank's supervisory board. At the same time, the government's representative is also a member of the EBRD Board of Directors and the EBRD's Deputy Executive Director for the group of countries that includes Ukraine. As CHESNO explained, this is a fundamentally different type of combination than those discussed above.
Supervisory Boards. Denials of Requests
Overall, three state-owned companies refused to respond to CHESNO's inquiries. In particular, Ukrposhta cited Article 22 of the Law "On Access to Public Information." Specifically, they stated that the composition of the supervisory board is non-public information, as its members are not employees of the company. They merely perform functions under civil contracts, and therefore questions about them "fall outside the company's purview."
Energoatom cited the Law "On Access to Public Information" and noted that state-owned enterprises are required to disclose "the structure, principles of formation, and the amount of salaries, remuneration, and additional benefits" of the director, deputy director, and members of the supervisory board. However, the company added that the names of supervisory board members allegedly do not fall under this provision, therefore "the requested information falls outside the scope of Article 13 of the Law." However, Energoatom provided five links where one can independently search for the names of supervisory board members.
Ukrainian Gas Transmission System Operator LLC formally acknowledged its role as a public information provider as a natural monopoly. However, the Ukrainian Gas Transmission System Operator (UGTSO) narrowed this acknowledgement to providing information on supply terms and prices. The company excluded all other information related to corporate governance. However, the UGTSO did include links to relevant information.
"All three refusals share a common logic: state-owned companies are attempting to narrow the legislative definition of public information to the minimum possible scope. Therefore, the composition of the supervisory board—the governing body that makes decisions on billions of dollars in assets—is the first to be excluded from this narrowed definition ," CHESNO noted.
The movement drew several conclusions from the data it received. First, the transparency of state-owned companies depends less on the law than on the desire to ensure it. Second, CHESNO was able to identify a significant difference in the personnel approach between the two groups of supervisory board members.
"Independent directors primarily come from international companies, banks, and regulatory organizations. Meanwhile, representatives of our government are mostly deputy ministers, advisers to the Presidential Administration or the President, former officials, or heads of government agencies. As a result, one gets the impression of two separate personnel ecosystems, radically different in nature. Meanwhile, the work of various companies is overseen by current or former officials ," explained CHESNO.
The third conclusion is that access to supervisory boards is concentrated not only in the hands of a small number of people, but also within certain professional and political circles. Specifically, various companies are staffed by people with connections in government.
"This is most noticeable around the former head of the presidential office, Andriy Yermak. Furthermore, the state is increasingly relying on a small circle of its representatives who simultaneously serve on the supervisory boards of various strategic enterprises. Formally, the law does not prohibit this, but in reality, control over various sectors is concentrated in the hands of a limited number of individuals ," CHESNO added.
It also became clear that the NABU and SAP investigation into corruption at Energoatom was a catalyst. Following this, the supervisory boards of not only Energoatom itself but also Ukrenergo were renewed.
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"This creates the impression that Operation Midas has become not only an anti-corruption measure but also the starting point for a new stage in the development of a corporate governance system. And finally, the question of 'who sits on the supervisory board' is not a technical one. The people on these boards make decisions regarding companies that provide electricity to homes, transport, and the safety of the savings of millions of Ukrainians. The public has the right to know their names without inquiries, appeals, or waiting," CHESNO concluded.
ZN.UA previously reported that Verkhovna Rada deputies called on the government to ban the consolidation of lots at Energoatom auctions, as they believe this reduces competition and could lead to electricity being sold at reduced prices. Specifically, the Verkhovna Rada deputies warned the Cabinet of Ministers and the Ministry of Energy against reinstating the company's old schemes.
Skelet.Org
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