Case description
An apartment unlawfully acquired by former Head of the Vinnytsia Territorial Recruitment and Social Support Center Roman Poterlevych was confiscated, as it had originally been intended for a defender of Ukraine.
According to the investigation, in the summer of 2022, Poterlevych received a free apartment in Vinnytsia without any legal grounds, despite its market value of UAH 1.9 million. The property had been designated for a servicemember deployed at the front, but Poterlevych registered the apartment in his father’s name.
As a result, his father became the official owner of a 64.9 m² apartment in Vinnytsia. Although ownership was formally registered in the father’s name, all actions related to acquiring and registering the apartment were carried out by Poterlevych himself.
The apartment was acquired free of charge. Documents from the housing cooperative Ahronomichne 2 stated that the father had paid 100% of the cooperative contributions; however, there was no evidence of actual payment — bank statements showed no transactions from the father or anyone acting on his behalf.
Testimony from the head of the housing cooperative confirmed that in 2022, he had decided to gift several apartments “as a sign of gratitude” to members of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and their families. The investigation also established that Poterlevych’s father had no legal income sufficient to purchase an apartment at market value. From 1998 to 2022, their total declared income did not exceed UAH 1.6 million, part of which had already been spent — for instance, in 2021, Poterlevych’s mother purchased another apartment for over UAH 1.1 million. This indicated that they could not have legally financed a second apartment.
Thus, the apartment, worth UAH 1.94 million, was acquired free of charge, with no legal source of funds, and was deemed an unjustified asset. The defendants claimed that the apartment was purchased by the father using family funds and that Poterlevych had no connection to it. They also argued that the acquisition involved property rights in the form of a cooperative share, not the apartment itself, and that the transaction had been executed personally and voluntarily by the father.
In November 2023, the SAPO filed a claim seeking to declare the apartment an unjustified asset and recover it for the state. Ultimately, the HACC panel of judges granted the claim and ordered the confiscation of the apartment, valued at UAH 1.9 million.
In the same Vinnytsia recruitment center, in the summer of 2023, the State Bureau of Investigation uncovered a large-scale scheme involving the sale of permits to leave the country. Recruitment center officials reportedly accepted bribes of at least $3,000 from each conscript seeking assistance with documentation. In November 2023, following Poterlevych’s dismissal, the recruitment center was headed by a new combat officer, Serhii Martseniuk.
