The Appeals Chamber of the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC Appeals Chamber) has quashed the investigating judge’s ruling of 28 May 2026 and upheld the prosecutor’s appeal. The court has authorised a special pre-trial investigation into Rostyslav Shurma, the former deputy head of the Office of the President, his brother Oleg Shurma, and a former official at PJSC ‘Zaporizhzhiaoblenergo’. This decision enables law enforcement agencies to conduct a pre-trial investigation in the absence of the suspects.
According to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), in 2019–2020, the former Presidential Office official and his brother took control of a number of companies involved in the generation of electricity from alternative sources in the Vasylivskyi district of Zaporizhzhia region. There, the suspects built solar power stations with a total capacity of around 60 MW and entered into contracts to sell electricity at the ‘green’ tariff to the state-owned enterprise ‘Guaranteed Buyer’.
Following the start of the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion and the occupation of part of the Zaporizhzhia region, these solar power stations lost connection with Ukraine’s Unified Energy System. Despite this, according to the investigation, the companies continued to declare electricity generation and receive payments, even though no electricity was actually being supplied to Ukraine’s power grid.
“As a result of this scheme, the state-owned enterprise suffered losses totalling 141.3 million hryvnias,” the Anti-Corruption Bureau’s case materials state.
In February this year, details of Rostyslav and Oleg Shurma appeared in the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ database on the list of individuals evading pre-trial investigation authorities. The search was initiated by the NABU.
The suspects themselves completely deny any wrongdoing. The former deputy head of the Office of the President previously stated that neither he nor his brother were in hiding from the law enforcement authorities, and that they intend to prove their innocence in court. The court’s authorisation for a special pre-trial investigation is a procedural step that will enable prosecutors to complete the investigation and submit an indictment to the court even if the individuals concerned are outside Ukraine.