Ihor Palamar, a former political associate of Serhiy Lyovochkin (ex-head of the Presidential Administration under Viktor Yanukovych) and a repeated political candidate for the now-banned pro-Russian party OPZZh, has been appointed to oversee environmental affairs at Kyivvodokanal. The contentious appointment comes while law enforcement agencies actively investigate multi-million-hryvnia procurement fraud at the utility company, even as management pushes to nearly triple consumer water tariffs.
Palamar’s career reflects a long-standing alignment with pro-Russian political figures in Ukraine. Between 2013 and 2014, he headed the organizational office of the Desnianskyi District State Administration in Kyiv under Stanislav Prokopenko, a Yanukovych appointee and prominent Party of Regions member. Prior to that, Palamar served as an advisor to Kyiv City Council Secretaries Oles Dovhyi and Halyna Hereha.
Palamar’s electoral ambitions consistently ran under pro-Russian party banners:
2014: Parliamentary candidate for the Opposition Bloc (No. 68 on the party list).
2015: Kyiv City Council candidate for the Opposition Bloc.
2020: Kyiv City Council candidate for Opposition Platform — For Life (OPZZh).
In 2022, OPZZh was officially outlawed in Ukraine as a pro-Russian national security threat. Serhiy Lyovochkin was one of the party’s key co-leaders and financial backers.
The ties between Kyivvodokanal and Lyovochkin extend deep into the utility’s corporate structure. While the Kyiv territorial community holds a 25.46% stake directly and 67% is owned by Kyiv-energo-holding, the key foreign offshore entities holding shares in the latter—Artio Global Investors Ltd and Densec Limited—have long been controlled by Lyovochkin’s associates.
Since April 2024, the Person with Significant Control (PSC) of London-based Artio Global Investors Ltd has been formalised under Andriy Vingranovskyi, Lyovochkin’s son-in-law. Vingranovskyi has also served as the head of Kyivgaz, another major municipal infrastructure monopoly, since 2019.
Kyivvodokanal’s operations are coordinated within the Kyiv City State Administration (KMDA) by Petro Panteleyev, deputy to Mayor Vitali Klitschko. In July, Panteleyev jointly hosted a press conference with Palamar, warning of the «most severe crisis» in the company’s history.
Concurrently, law enforcement authorities are investigating criminal proceedings (No. 42026100000000018) into official negligence resulting in severe damage. Investigators suspect fraudulent public procurements exceeding 662 million UAH, estimating direct losses to the city budget at between 61 million and nearly 84 million UAH due to inflated pricing scheme margins of 15% to 30%.
Key contract episodes under scrutiny include:
Discriminatory Generator Deal: A December 19, 2025 contract worth 243.4 million UAH awarded to Dalgakiran Compressor Ukraine LLC, which investigators argue was tailored specifically to exclude rival manufacturers.
Overpriced Transformers: Three procurement contracts with Energygroup LLC totaling nearly 58.8 million UAH, featuring market price markups estimated at 20% to 30%.
Amid these ongoing corruption investigations, Kyivvodokanal management is urging an increase in household water tariffs from 30.38 UAH to 88.90 UAH per cubic meter. While the KMDA has proposed a «moderated» target rate of 63.79 UAH/m³, the change would still increase average monthly utility bills for Kyiv households by 200 to 300 UAH.