On November 18, 2025, the HACC imposed an interim measure on former Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Chernyshov, ordering detention with the option of posting UAH 51.6 million bail. Should bail be posted, he must comply with the following obligations:
- appear at every request of the detective, prosecutor, and the court;
- notify the investigator, prosecutor, or the court of any change of residence or workplace;
- not leave Kyiv or Kyiv Region;
- refrain from communicating with other suspects and witnesses;
- surrender his international passport;
- wear an electronic monitoring device.
During today’s hearing, the defense continued its submissions. Counsel argued that Chernyshov’s actions contain no elements of a criminal offense and stressed that no correspondence exists between him and his wife regarding the transfer of funds. According to the defense, he had no involvement in the alleged acts.
Another defense lawyer claimed that Energoatom suffered no losses and that there is no evidence that the money allegedly transferred to Chernyshov was obtained unlawfully. In his view, the suspicion is unfounded and the motion for an interim measure does not meet the requirements of the Criminal Procedure Code. He also pointed to Chernyshov’s proper procedural conduct in another criminal case as evidence that there are no risks. The defense therefore requested that the prosecutor’s motion be rejected in full.
Chernyshov told the court he condemns any form of corruption and is ready to assist the investigation. He stated there is no evidence of his involvement in any criminal activity. The nickname “Che Guevara,” he said, does not refer to him. He added that he is accused of failing to declare funds that “did not exist in the first place.”
The court considered three applications to take Chernyshov on personal surety — from Oleksandr Savchenko, Director of the State Research Institute of Construction Production; Bishop Mykhailo Anishchenko; and Professor Oleksandr Usenko. The court dismissed all of them.
Responding to the defense, the prosecutor posed several rhetorical questions to Chernyshov: why he was present in the apartment used by the criminal organization, what the so-called “intellectual club” was, and why he accepted money from the scheme’s participants. In the prosecutor’s view, the fact of Chernyshov receiving the money is indisputable.
As previously reported, the NABU and the SAPO uncovered a criminal organization composed of current and former officials, including those in the energy sector. According to the prosecution, its members built a large-scale corruption scheme aimed at exerting influence over the operations of strategic state-owned enterprises — most notably, Energoatom —obtaining unlawful benefits and laundering proceeds of crime.
The investigation alleges that members of this organization transferred funds to Chernyshov, referred to internally by the codename “Che Guevara.”