In May 2023, Supreme Court (SC) President Vsevolod Kniaziev was caught by anti-corruption agencies accepting a bribe of almost USD 3 million. Back then, searches were carried out on the premises of all judges of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court (GC SC) who had taken part in the decision in question, as well as of all other involved SC judges. According to the investigation, this was money paid by Kostiantyn Zhevaho to recognize the legitimacy of his company Ferrexpo purchasing an equity stake in Poltava Mining and Processing Plant back in 2002.

Vsevolod Kniaziev

According to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), SC judges and leadership established a criminal enterprise to cover up the receipt of the bribe — a bar association through which negotiations were held with SC judges about the amount of undue benefit and through which funds were supposed to be funneled. The prosecution claimed that Kniaziev asked to sort the bribe into 13 black bags with different amounts.

Supreme Court (SC) President Vsevolod Kniaziev was caught accepting a bribe of almost USD 3 million. Searches were carried out on the premises of all judges of the Grand Chamber who had taken part in the decision in question. At least two of them, Zhanna Yelenina and Iryna Hryhorieva, were found with black bags containing marked bills, USD 50,000 each. According to the investigation, Vsevolod Kniaziev requested 13 such black bags.

Public sources disclose the details of searches at the premises of two SC justices — judges Zhanna Yelenina and Iryna Hryhorieva were both found in possession of USD 50,000. Neither was declared a suspect. In addition, the other judges among the 13 for whom Kniaziev was preparing bags with money are still unknown and still administer justice in the Supreme Court.
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What happened next? While the Plenum of the Supreme Court was hastily selecting the new President (eventually choosing Stanislav Kravchenko), the High Council of Justice granted permission for Kniaziev’s arrest and detention; in addition, he was suspended from administering justice. However, he retained his status as a judge and a considerable judicial paycheck. Until January 31, 2024, the former SC President had been held in pre-trial detention, and then he was released on bail of over UAH 18 million.

The HCJ launched two disciplinary cases against Vsevolod Kniaziev: on the receipt of undue benefit in the amount of about USD 3 million and a separate one regarding the rent of a luxury apartment in downtown Kyiv allegedly for UAH 1000 a month (according to the rent agreement found during the search). At the end of 2023, the Pecherskyi District Court of Kyiv recognized that paying this amount for a 4-bedroom apartment in the Pechersk district constituted a gift (Kniaziev “saved” over a million hryvnia this way). The Law “On Prevention of Corruption” prohibits judges from receiving gifts in this amount.

HCJ member Serhii Burlakov, who was the rapporteur on the disciplinary case about the bribe, did everything possible for over six months to delay it. Eventually, the HCJ brought the former SC President to liability and dismissed him for the undervalued rent. However, his accomplices in the bribery case remain mostly unknown and unpunished.

The journalistic investigation about the former Chair of the Cassation Economic Court within the Supreme Court, Bohdan Lvov, who was found to have Russian citizenship, caused a major public outcry. But Lvov was not alone. Later, investigators from Skhemy found former SC justice Valentyna Simonenko to own a passport issued by the aggressor country, too. This shows that for years, citizens of Russia have been issuing verdicts “in the name of Ukraine” and may have access to state secret, which jeopardizes national security. There is still a danger that Russian citizens may administer justice in Ukraine, since there is no effective mechanism to verify judges and candidates for judicial positions for foreign citizenship.

Citizenship of another country is grounds for ineligibility to participate in competitive recruitment for a judicial position. However, during the competition for the Supreme Court, the High Qualification Commission of Judges did not send a request to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) to check candidates for foreign citizenship. It is therefore not surprising that Bohdan Lvov succeeded.

However, it appears that the Security Service of Ukraine deliberately sabotaged verification of candidates for the SC for foreign citizenship. Three months after Lvov’s second citizenship was found, the SBU publicly reported that it had not found Vsevolod Kniaziev to have Russian citizenship, it remains unknown whether any other additionally verified judge has Russian citizenship. In response to the inquiry filed by the DEJURE Foundation, the Security Service reported that it “regularly checks” individuals for Russian citizenship. It remains unknown how this is done in the case of judges, particularly those with access to state secret.

It is also unclear whether the SBU has actually checked the Supreme Court judges after the situation with Lvov. Back then, the SBU quickly reported that Kniaziev had no other citizenship, but for some reason delayed the verification of other judges. It was journalists again who found out that retired SC justice Valentyna Simonenko had Russian citizenship, though the SBU had previously reported they had not found her to be a Russian citizen.

Bohdan Lvov

Chair of the Cassation Economic Court within the Supreme Court (CEC of the Supreme Court) and Deputy Chair of the Supreme Court as of 2022

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The PIC issued an opinion about him indicating low integrity.
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Lvov became the Chair of the High Economic Court of Ukraine in 2014. He continued to use the hands-on control methods inherited from the former court leaders of the Yanukovych era, Tatkov and Yemelianov. They created numerous specializations for a controlled distribution of cases. During the competitive recruitment for the Supreme Court, the PIC pointed out the facts indicating Lvov’s low integrity, including episodes from journalistic investigations and the fact that he had received a prize weapon from Avakov. Despite these concerns, in the course of the notorious failed recruitment for the SC, Lvov and other leaders of high specialized courts retained analogous positions in the new Supreme Court. Lvov, for one, became the chair of the Cassation Economic Court within the Supreme Court (CEC SC). Later, he was selected Deputy President of the Supreme Court while being the only candidate; that is, there was no alternative. More information about Bohdan Lvov’s biography is available here.

In September 2022, investigative journalists of Skhemy found out that Bohdan Lvov had a Russian passport, a Russian tax code (tax ID), and an undeclared apartment in Moscow. The media found that he had obtained Russian citizenship back in 1999 in Moscow, when he was already working as a judge in Ukraine.

In October 2022, an assembly of CEC SC judges was held to discuss the issue of Lvov’s dismissal from the position of the Chair of the Cassation Economic Court. He was not dismissed, however, since there were not enough votes.

It was only public pressure that forced then-President of the Supreme Court Vsevolod Kniaziev to dismiss Lvov from the staff after the Security Service of Ukraine had confirmed his Russian citizenship.

Lvov filed a lawsuit against this decision, and on January 10, 2024, District Administrative Court of Kyiv (DACK) judge Aliona Kushnova, featured in the infamous “Vovk tapes,” ruled to have him reinstated.

Interestingly, a day before the case was tried, the new SC President Stanislav Kravchenko said in an interview that Bohdan Lvov had been dismissed from the SC staff because of “a subjective decision of then-President of the Supreme Court Vsevolod Kniaziev.” Such statements not only worsened the legal stance of the Supreme Court as a defendant in the case before its trial; they are also a violation of the Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct and the Judicial Ethics Code.

In addition, the Supreme Court appealed Kushnova’s decision only under public pressure. When the appeal was tried in the Sixth Administrative Court of Appeal, SC representation left much to be desired. The Supreme Court representative was unable to clearly answer any of the judges’ questions, in particular, when the SBU requested to attach evidence to the case, she stated: “[This is] at the discretion of the court… for me personally, it does not matter.” During the hearing, she said several times, “Do you need my personal opinion, or the opinion of the Supreme Court?” Despite this, the judicial panel of the Sixth Administrative Court of Appeal still overturned Kushnova’s decision. A detailed timeline of Lvov’s case can be found here.

Valentyna Simonenko

Judge of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court and Chair of the Civil Court of Cassation within the Supreme Court as of 2023

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The PIC also issued an opinion about this judge’s low integrity back in 2017. They discovered that Simonenko had become a Russian citizen in 2003 (currently, Simonenko’s passport is listed as “invalid due to expiration”), and after the annexation of Crimea, she received an individual tax number of the Russian Federation at the Interdistrict Inspectorate of the Federal Tax Service No. 1 for the city of Sevastopol. Activists even protested her SC appointment outside the Presidential Administration.
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Simonenko did not deny that she had a Russian tax number, instead trying to justify its receipt in every possible way, but there are reasons to argue that the illegally created Russian so-called authorities in the temporarily occupied territories could not receive information from the passport issued to the judge in June 2015 independently.

In addition, Simonenko repeatedly traveled to the occupied Crimea, and also tried to hide her assets and information about illicit enrichment. Namely, in her 2015 electronic declaration, Simonenko failed to declare a number of enterprises owned by her then-husband Serhii Simonenko, who, according to the PIC, maintained business connections in the occupied territories.

However, all of this turned out insufficient for President Poroshenko, and in 2018, Valentyna Simonenko was appointed a CCC SC judge.

Journalists of the Skhemy project found her in possession of a Russian passport in October 2023. Despite this, in March 2023, the High Council of Justice granted Simonenko an honorable retirement, citing her sufficient experience as a judge. The HCJ ignored all the other relevant circumstances.

In July 2024, the High Council of Justice had a chance to terminate Simonenko’s retirement (and therefore her lifetime payments) on the grounds of the judge’s voluntary acquisition of citizenship of another country. However, this was not done, and Simonenko now enjoys monthly payments of about UAH 200,000 in honorable retirement.