Mayor of Kiliya detained for bribe of around €30,000 in connection with wind power plant construction approval

The Security Service of Ukraine has detained the mayor of Kiliya in Izmail district, Vyacheslav Chernyavsky, who was extorting a bribe from a representative of a company with foreign investment in exchange for approving permit documentation for the construction of a wind power plant.

This was reported by the SBU and Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko; a law enforcement source identified the suspect by name to the outlet Ukrainska Pravda.

According to investigators, the entrepreneurs needed a permit to cut down vegetation along the access roads to the construction site. It was at this stage that the mayor began deliberately obstructing the process: first citing the absence of environmental inspectors, then the workload of relevant staff, and later power outages at the city council.

The company even donated three generators to the city council as charitable assistance to ensure uninterrupted operations, but this did not help. The prosecutor general indicated that the real reason for the delays was different.

At a meeting in a restaurant, the mayor stated his “rate”: 30,000 US dollars for signing the documents and giving the “green light” for construction. During subsequent negotiations he raised his demands, and the final bribe amount came to 35,000 US dollars — around €30,000.

To conceal the bribe, the official used a crypto scheme. Through an intermediary, he passed the entrepreneurs a code for an Odesa exchange office, where cash was converted into cryptocurrency and credited to a specified electronic wallet. After the first tranche of 10,000 US dollars, the mayor confirmed receipt of the funds and initiated an active process of issuing the permit. Once the document was ready, the entrepreneurs received the next code to transfer another 25,000 US dollars via the same scheme.

After the official received the full amount — 35,000 US dollars — he was detained. The transfer of funds was documented by law enforcement as part of criminal proceedings.

Chernyavsky has been served with a notice of suspicion of extortion and receipt of unlawful benefit on an especially large scale under Part 4 of Article 368 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The prosecutor’s office intends to petition the court to impose a preventive measure and remove the official from his position.