Former Minister of Agricultural Policy Vitalii Koval, who is allegedly linked to Tymur Mindich and who previously headed the Rivne Regional State Administration and State Property Fund, filed a lawsuit against the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP). On December 10, the first court hearing in the case took place in Rivne. The former minister is trying to challenge the NACP’s actions regarding monitoring his lifestyle. Koval needs this lawsuit for another court case: in the High Anti-Corruption Court, the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office is trying to collect more than 9 million hryvnias from Koval and his family as state revenue. After the inspection by the NACP, it was established that the family needed this sum to buy an elite apartment near Holosiivskyi Park in Kyiv. The official owner of the apartment is Koval’s mother-in-law.
The Suspilne investigative editorial office has established that the lawsuit against the NACP is not the only one that the ex-minister uses to avoid paying millions of hryvnias to the budget. There was another lawsuit, officially connected with his mother-in-law. The court proved that the money for an expensive purchase was borrowed. The money was supposedly borrowed from a Kyiv lawyer who has a film business, receives money from the state budget for the production of TV series, and who, according to the media, was linked to the “95 Quarter” studio.
This investigation prompted us to another search whether Vitalii Koval was involved in the large-scale Energoatom corruption scheme, which was exposed by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau in early November. During the court hearings when choosing preventive measures for the defendants in the “Midas” case, the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office mentioned “citizen Koval” who helped to withdraw funds abroad via cryptocurrency. A few days before the Midas public disclosure, an article in “Ukrainska Pravda” claimed that Vitalii Koval belonged to Tymur Mindich’s sphere of influence.
Lawsuit in Rivne against the NACP
The Rivne District Administrative Court accepted Vitalii Koval’s claim to the NACP in November, recognizing the reasons for missing the deadline for appealing as valid. Why is it the Rivne court? Because the former minister is officially registered in Berezne, Rivne region, where he comes from. However, he has an apartment in Kyiv.
Vitalii Koval asks the court to recognize the actions taken during the monitoring of his lifestyle as unlawful, to cancel the NACP letter to the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), which raised the issue of applying to the court with a lawsuit to recognize assets as unfounded and recover them to the state revenue, and to cancel the NACP report prepared based on the results of the monitoring of his lifestyle.
The first preparatory hearing took place on December 10. According to the online media outlet “4 Vlada”, Vitalii Koval’s interests were represented by lawyer Dmytro Verteba, but the ex-minister himself did not appear at the preparatory hearing.
The lawyer filed a motion to request from the NACP all materials of monitoring Vitalii Koval’s lifestyle and a copy of the decision on the completion of the monitoring procedure. However, the judge refused to grant them. The judge also ordered lawyer Verteba to provide readable copies of bank statements that were attached to the lawsuit in improper quality.
The judge scheduled the next hearing for 11:30 am on January 21, 2026.
If the court in Rivne finds the NACP actions unlawful, this may affect the SAPO evidence in court.
Lawsuits against the SAPO over the mother-in-law’s apartment
Vitalii Koval and his mother-in-law Halyna Baraniuk are co-defendants in the case about the recovery in favor of the state of a share of the apartment in which Koval lived since he was appointed the head of the State Property Fund and later the Minister of Agricultural Policy. The involved amount is 9 million 300 thousand hryvnias.
According to the ex-minister’s declaration, the 170-square-meter apartment in Kyiv belongs to Halyna Baraniuk, the mother of Koval’s wife, Kseniia Koval. According to the same declaration, the daughter rented the apartment from her mother. However, the official has had personal 66-square-meter housing in Kyiv since 2008.
The official did not specify the cost of the mother-in-law’s apartment: he said he did not know it. Halyna Baraniuk bought the apartment when Vitalii Koval was the head of the Rivne Regional State Administration.
However, as “Slidstvo.Info” investigative journalists found out, the property is located in a premium residential complex and could cost the buyer more than 17 million hryvnias.
The journalists found out that Halyna Baraniuk is a pensioner, has lived in Chernivtsi all her life and previously worked as an accountant at various enterprises.
After the journalist investigation and inspections by the NACP and NABU, the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office suspected that Halyna Baraniuk had bought the apartment on behalf of Vitalii Koval, since the minister and his family used it. However, Koval’s mother-in-law and his family did not have enough legal income to purchase this apartment. Therefore, in May 2025, the SAPO initiated a lawsuit to confiscate part of the property, or 9 million 300 thousand hryvnias. They calculated that the family lacked this amount to buy an apartment with the official income of the ex-minister and his relatives.
At the request of the prosecutor’s office, the High Anti-Corruption Court froze the mother-in-law’s apartment and Vitalii Koval’s apartment, which he purchased with loan in 2008, for the duration of the case.
As stated in the verdict to freeze the property, the mother-in-law explained that she had the money for the apartment because she sold 12 acres of land in the village of Khodosivka near Kyiv for 3.8 million hryvnias. And she borrowed another 5.5 million.
The verdict also states that, under the terms of the loan agreement, these 5.5 million hryvnias were to be provided in cash. However, the details of the account to which the money was to be transferred were not indicated in the agreement. Law enforcement officers also did not receive confirmation that this amount of money was transferred to Halyna Baraniuk’s bank accounts.
By case number, the Judicial Authority website shows that the consideration of the SAPO lawsuit regarding the recovery of unfounded assets is ongoing. First, the deadline for the defendants to submit evidence at the preparatory meeting was extended, and then the defendants’ lawyers filed various motions and asked to postpone the hearing due to participation in another case. The next court hearing in the case will take place on January 9, 2026.
A lawyer with a film business: who is the lender to Koval’s mother-in-law?
While the High Administrative Court is considering the SAPO’s lawsuit regarding the unfounded assets of the former minister and his mother-in-law, the man from whom Halyna Baraniuk allegedly borrowed money to purchase the apartment filed a lawsuit against her and received a ruling to recover the money that she did not return – 179,544 US dollars. The man’s name is Oleksandr Peremezhko.
In fact, with this decision, the court established that Halyna Baraniuk had a loan agreement since July 2021 and that she received 5.44 million hryvnias (or almost 200 thousand US dollars at the exchange rate of that period) in cash from a third party to purchase housing in Kyiv.
According to the court decision, Halyna Baraniuk was supposed to return the money by July 10, 2022. However, she did not do so and the return date was postponed to the end of 2025. Halyna also settled tenants in that apartment (i.e. her daughter with the husband and children), repaying the debt at the expense of their payments. However, the lender decided to terminate the contract in July 2025. This happened when the SAPO had already filed a lawsuit to recover part of the apartment.
Oleksandr Peremezhko, according to the YouControl analytical system, is a lawyer and managing partner of the law firm “Oleksandr Peremezhko and Partners” and a key person in the Peremezhko family group of companies.
The companies of this group work in various areas: trade in wood, building materials and sanitary equipment (PE “Fides”, LLC “Palet Expert”, LLC “Helios-K”), and production of wooden containers (LLC “Woodservice Ukraine”). Peremezhko also has companies working in the field of video production and television programs – “Artforms Production Ukraine” (since 2016) and “Artforms Production Kyiv” (since 2024).
Since 2018, the first company has been run by producer and screenwriter Tetiana Hnedash, the ex-wife of Oleksandr Tkachenko, former Minister of Culture and Information Policy. Lawyer Oleksandr Peremezhko represented the interests of Tetiana Hnedash in her dispute with Oleksandr Tkachenko over the division of marital property back in 2013.
The film production companies owned by Oleksandr Peremezhko were awarded funds from the state budget for filming TV series in 2023 at the Ministry of Culture’s competition. “Artforms Production Kyiv” LLC received 8.1 million hryvnias for the melodrama TV series “The Prosecutor’s Daughter-in-Law”. “Artforms Production Ukraine” LLC received 15.8 million hryvnias for the melodrama detective TV series “OPG”.
After the funds were allocated, the publication “Detector Media” wrote that “Artforms Production Ukraine” and “Artforms Production Kyiv” allegedly belonged to the orbit of the “95 Quarter” studio through connections with Borys Shefir and Naum Barulia. However, we note that we did not find such direct connections in the register.
Peremezhko was also a business partner of Oksana Osmachko, who worked as Vitalii Koval’s deputy at the State Property Fund and at the Ministry of Agricultural Policy. Peremezhko and Osmachko founded and jointly owned the consulting company “Jyti Consulting Ukraine” LLC.
Oksana Osmachko was dismissed from the ministry in August 2025.
We also note that one of the lawyers in the case of Koval and his mother-in-law is Yevhenii Usyk. The website legalhub.online indicates that he was part of the team of Oleksandr Peremezhko’s office.
Oleksandr Peremezhko confirmed to us that he had filed a lawsuit against Halyna Baraniuk regarding the loan agreement. In response to the questions that we sent by email, he replied that he knew Halyna Baraniuk and that he was investing his free funds in various projects, including real estate.
“I know Vitalii Koval and Oksana Osmachko, but we are not connected at the moment. Regarding the choice of a lawyer by Halyna Baraniuk and Vitalii Koval, I cannot comment on this. This question should be addressed directly to them. Despite the fact that Yevhen Usyk earlier worked in our association, we are not connected at the moment,” Peremyzhko added.
Oleksandr Peremizhko did not answer the question whether Halyna Baraniuk had returned the debt.
The lawyer also assured that he represents his own interests in “Artforms Production Ukraine” LLC, and that he is not personally acquainted with Mindich and Shefir.
The former deputy of Vitalii Koval, Oksana Osmachko, refused to comment.
The ex-minister is now a private entrepreneur and heads an NGO
Vitalii Koval was the Minister of Agricultural Policy and Food from September 5, 2024 to July 17, 2025. His dismissal took place during the reorganization in the government when the Ministry of Agricultural Policy was merged with the Ministry of Economy. On July 17, minister Koval made a farewell post on his official Facebook page, and on August 14, he filed a declaration after his dismissal.
Koval came to the government from the State Property Fund of Ukraine, which he headed in November 2023 during the “reboot” of the government. He headed the fund until September 4, 2024. At that time, “Ukrainska Pravda”, citing sources from the president’s team, wrote that Vitalii Koval was supported by the then head of the President’s Office, Andrii Yermak.
Before working in the capital, Vitalii Koval was the head of the Rivne Regional State Administration for four years, from September 2019 to November 2023. Before that, he worked in private business and was an entrepreneur.
When minister Vitalii Koval resigned, he was practically unheard of, and his social media pages became inactive. Only on November 12, Koval’s name appeared in the state register of legal entities – as the head of the Rivne regional association of employers’ organizations “Employers of Rivne Region”, a non-profit public organization founded in 2017 by four other employers’ organizations.
On December 12, Vitalii Koval was again registered as an individual entrepreneur providing consulting on commercial activities, leasing property, public relations activities, market research, and public opinion polling.
“Bolik" from Spain
When the suspects in the Midas case were being given preventive measures, the name “Koval” was mentioned several times, along with “Rocket”, “Tenor”, “Sugarman”, “Carlson”, “Che Guevara” and others.
“Citizen Koval”, as the SAPO prosecutors claimed in court, converted money into cryptocurrency and had the nickname “Bolik” in the back office.
The SAPO prosecutors mentioned “citizen Koval” and the nickname Bolik several times in the High Anti-Corruption Court. Online broadcasts of court hearings on the selection of preventive measures for the defendants in the Midas case on YouTube allowed us to find all the mentions of “Koval” and “Bolik”. Let us consider some of them.
On November 11, 2025, the SAPO prosecutor, listing the members of the criminal group that was engaged in receiving and laundering money from counterparties of Energoatom, indicated the following:
“To commit certain crimes, in particular financial transactions with virtual assets, the participants of the criminal organization under unknown circumstances no later than February 24, 2025 involved citizen Koval who had experience in committing transactions of this type. At the same time, the nickname “Bolik” was chosen for him and was used during communication inside the group.
The prosecutors also stated that Ihor Fursenko (“Roshik”, the accountant of the back office, – Ed.) called citizen Koval, who was abroad, and asked him to send over 37 thousand US dollars in cryptocurrency to Atlanta. The call was in Russian, here is the translation:
“Bolik, hello, Bolik, are you here? I have a correction. Hello. It is small. Remember, in Atlanta it wasn’t 20, but 37,730 that had to be given. So I’ll give you the rest now. No, the process didn’t go through, because they haven’t given any contacts, no token, nothing.”
During another court hearing, the prosecutors indicated that Bolik appeared in conversations as an expert on Europe and Spain:
“What are your bets on Veronica? Let’s ask this guy, who we wanted to ask, we’ll ask Bolik about Spain… Bolik knows about Europe.”
According to the prosecutor, the back office turned to “citizen Koval” for “services” in February 2025, so we assumed that it could not be Vitalii Koval. At that time, Vitalii Koval was a minister. In addition, the prosecutors mentioned that as of November, “Bolik” was abroad, and Vitalii Koval, judging by his activity in state registers, was still in Ukraine.
However, we asked the SAPO whether “Bolik”, whom prosecutors mentioned during the court hearings, is former minister Vitalii Koval. We did not receive a direct answer: the SAPO referred to the secrecy of the pre-trial investigation.
We also called the former minister at a phone number known to us to ask about his current job, trials, connections with Tymur Mindich, possible involvement in the work of the back office, and whether he knows who “citizen Koval” in the Midas case is. Vitalii Koval did not respond to calls or messages.
We called the organization “Employers of Rivne Region,” which is officially headed by Vitalii Koval. The number provided was answered by Iryna Sakaly, who worked with Koval first at the Rivne Regional State Administration, then at the State Property Fund, and later as the head of the patronage service at the Ministry of Agricultural Policy and Food.
The woman promised to “pass on” our request for comments to Vitalii Koval. Then she stopped answering our calls.
Biography and property of ex-minister Koval
Finally, let us briefly consider the biography and property of Vitaliy Koval.
He was born on July 28, 1981 in the town of Berezne, Rivne region. In 2003, he graduated from the Ternopil Academy of National Economy with a degree in banking, and in 2017, from the Lviv Business School of the Ukrainian Catholic University. In 2021, Koval studied at the Aspen Institute Kyiv.
Vitalii Koval is a candidate for master of sports in Greco-Roman wrestling. Currently, he is a vice-president of the Ukrainian Wrestling Association and first vice-president of the All-Ukrainian Greco-Roman Wrestling Federation, and a member of the Olympic Committee of Ukraine.
From 2004 to 2006, he worked in various positions at the First Kyiv Branch of Ukrgasbank. From March 3, 2006 to July 5, 2019, he was an individual entrepreneur (main activity – wholesale trade in fruits and vegetables, – Ed.).
In 2010, Koval filed for bankruptcy due to loan debt. In 2011, the court stopped the proceedings.
From 2008 to 2009, he was the director of “Probank Consult” LLC in Vyshneve, Kyiv region. From 2012 to 2017, he worked as the general director of “Investtradeservice” LLC in Kyiv, which specializes in wholesale trade in grain, tobacco, seeds, and animal feed.
From 2014 until his appointment as head of the Rivne Regional State Administration, Vitalii Koval was the director of two other companies: “Sanako”, which specializes in the agricultural sector, sales of petroleum products and equipment, and “VVV Montazh”, a road construction company.
LLC “VVV Montazh”, although registered in Kyiv, mainly won biddings for road construction in Rivne region. According to ClarityProject, the company received more than 50 contracts in the region from 2018 to 2020 for a total amount of more than 440 million hryvnias.
Since 2020, the company has often appeared in subcontracting agreements with PJSC “Rivneavtoshliakhbud”. Vitalii Koval, who was already the head of the Regional State Administration, explained this by the fact that “VVV Montazh” is supposedly the only company in the region with an ISO 9001 certificate.
Vitalii Koval is married to Kseniia Koval, an interior designer and owner of the Koval Studio Design trademark. The couple has two daughters, Zlata and Bohdana.
Vitalii Koval’s mother, Tetiana Zinchuk, is a pensioner. Koval’s brother Oleh is an entrepreneur in the field of agricultural business. Father-in-law, Valerii Baraniuk, is a co-founder of LLC “Trading House Monolit-2000” (non-specialized wholesale trade, freight road transport, – Ed.). Mother-in-law, Halyna Baraniuk, is a pensioner and entrepreneur in the field of accounting services.
Apart from a 66-square-meter apartment in Kyiv, the Koval couple officially own no other real estate or cars.
The journalists from the online media outlet “4 Vlada” wrote that Vitalii Koval took out loans to buy real estate (an apartment in Kyiv and a non-residential building in Vyshneve, – Ed.) in 2008-2009, but never fully repaid the loan funds. His “debts” of over 7 million hryvnias were paid off by his mother Tetiana Zinchuk and Koval’s then-employer Yurii Karpovych.
In his declaration after the dismissal from the position of minister, Vitalii Koval indicated that he had 25 thousand US dollars, 5,500 euros, 234.5 thousand hryvnias in cash and about 1,500 euros in a bank account. His wife had 207 thousand US dollars and 180 thousand hryvnias in cash.
As for income, for the incomplete year 2025 as minister Koval received 840.9 thousand hryvnias. In addition, 132 thousand hryvnias from renting out, probably an apartment in Kyiv, are listed among the incomes for 2025.
The wife’s income from entrepreneurial activities is about 1.9 million hryvnias.
In addition, when Koval worked in private business and was the director of two enterprises, in his 2018 declarations he indicated that his official salary at “Sanako” LLC was 75 thousand hryvnias per year, that is, a little more than 6 thousand hryvnias per month. He received another 24 thousand hryvnias from part-time work at “VVV Montazh” LLC, that is, 2 thousand hryvnias per month.
