Former Vice Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, and until August 3, 2026, Ukraine's Ambassador to the United States Olha Stefanishyna has been informed of a new suspicion. The High Anti-Corruption Court is now deciding on the preventive measure. The prosecutor read out the correspondence between the former official and a real estate agent in court: she wanted to use an agent's services to buy a house for 550 thousand dollars.
The official version of the suspicion from NABU and SAP has not yet been disclosed. However, the figure of 550 thousand dollars is not the first sum that has emerged in cases related to Stefanishyna's property and that of her family over the past year.
Apartment for a third of the price
In a previous investigation, detectives examined how Stefanishyna's mother — Nadiya Kravets — purchased a three-bedroom apartment with an area of 99.8 square meters in the "Lvivska Square" complex. According to the contract, she paid approximately 3.04 million hryvnias. Journalists estimated the market value of similar housing in the same complex at least 12 million hryvnias — that is, four times more expensive than the declared amount.
Stefanishyna explained this difference by saying that her parents invested in the construction back in 2019, when a square meter cost about 29 thousand hryvnias. She emphasized that the apartment was her mother's property, so there were no grounds to include it in her own declaration.
It is around this logic — "this is not my property, it is a relative's property" — that most of the investigation's questions are built. NABU also checked two apartments in the "Faina Town" residential complex and a Mercedes-Benz GLC 220D 2017 model car, clarifying who actually financed the purchase and maintenance of these assets during 2021–2025.
Why numbers matter
A public official's declaration is not a formality, but a way to verify whether expenses match declared income. When the purchase price is three to four times lower than the market value, and a relative formally appears as the owner, the anti-corruption system asks one question: where did the real money come from. The court should answer this question — not the press, not political opponents, not the person in question herself.
The presence of assets or discounts in case documents does not in itself prove a crime. However, it explains why NABU has been developing several parallel episodes around one name for years: the mother's property, apartments in "Faina Town," possible transfer of assets by ARMA to related persons, and now — the intention to purchase a house for 550 thousand dollars.
Parallel proceedings
In June 2025, SAP registered a separate proceeding under the article on abuse of power that caused serious consequences — based on journalistic investigation into the transfer of ARMA assets to companies connected with Stefanishyna's circle and her ex-husband Mykhailo Stefanishyn. At that time, no one had been informed of the suspicions.
Stefanishyna stated that she had been divorced for a long time, was not involved in her ex-husband's business, and communicated with him solely regarding their shared children.
There is also a third, much older case — from the time of the Ministry of Justice under Olena Lukash, concerning a possible embezzlement of 2.5 million hryvnias in budget funds allocated for comparative law research on adapting legislation to EU standards in 2013–2014. Stefanishyna was informed of the suspicion in this case in October 2019, SAP sent the indictment to the High Anti-Corruption Court in September 2023, and the proceedings continue to this day.
What's next
Two days before the new suspicion, Zelensky signed a decree dismissing Stefanishyna from her position as ambassador to the United States — she explained this by personal circumstances. The investigation has not yet clarified whether the new suspicion is related to any of the three already open proceedings.
The main question in the coming days is not political but financial: whether the prosecution can show the court a direct connection between Stefanishyna's income and the cost of the property in question. If so, it will become a precedent for how the declaration system catches the gap between an official's declared salary and the actual price of their assets.
