The associate of Klychko, the secretary of the Kyiv City Council Volodymyr Bondarenko, is a key member of the fugitive Komarnytskyi’s gang?

In the recordings leaked by NABU, where the main figure involved is Denys Komarnytskyi, the name of the Kyiv City Council secretary Volodymyr Bondarenko was mentioned fleetingly. It creates a mistaken impression that Bondarenko is on the periphery of this story, although he is as much a key figure as Komarnytskyi himself.

Even from the fragment of the conversations released by NABU, it is clear that, firstly, Denys Komarnytskyi completely controls Volodymyr Bondarenko, and secondly, Bondarenko dutifully follows all the instructions of the former. Of course, after listening to how Komarnytskyi humiliates Bondarenko, everyone began to relish this excerpt. But the situation, unfortunately, is much deeper and more frightening than everyone thinks.

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And the essence is not that Denys Komarnytskyi, having no relation to the Kyiv City Council, instructs its secretary Volodymyr Bondarenko on what to do. The essence is that in any local council (and the Kyiv City Council is such), its secretary is a key figure. Sometimes even more important than the city head. Among other duties, the council secretary "organizes the preparation of council sessions, the issues submitted for council consideration," "ensures timely communication of council decisions to executors, organizes control over their implementation," and if the city head is absent or unable to perform duties, they replace them.

So, in other words, the secretary of any local council is a key figure. Because if necessary, they can replace the city head, and all the decisions signed by the council secretary in such a case have legal force. Therefore, there is always competition for the post of secretary in any council. And any sensible city head tries by all means to appoint their trusted person to this position. Vitaliy Klychko and the Kyiv City Council are no exception. Here, after long negotiations and agreements, Volodymyr Bondarenko became the secretary.

Therefore, the instructions given to Volodymyr Bondarenko by Denys Komarnytskyi are not just an ordinary corrupt connection between a deputy and a "watcher": what is included in the session agenda and how the council session is conducted by the secretary depends on what and how the deputies will vote. The session discussed on the NABU tapes occurred on February 20. Even after searches took place in Komarnytskyi’s offices, and he was declared wanted. This "wanted" effort is evidenced by Komarnytskyi’s call to Bondarenko demanding the session be closed. The session on February 20 was disrupted after the European Solidarity faction blocked the tribune, demanding the adoption of an appeal to prevent pressure on the opposition, military personnel, and the fifth President of Ukraine, but the decision didn’t gather the required number of votes.

But the essence is not this. It is that the session remained unclosed. It was Volodymyr Bondarenko who refused to do this, as Vitaliy Klychko was not in Kyiv, and the session was led by the secretary. An unclosed session means its decisions cannot be signed. And they do not come into effect. This was well understood by the former Kyiv City Council deputy, Denys Komarnytskyi. For this reason, he admonished Volodymyr Bondarenko.

There is another nuance – at the time of holding this session, besides the searches at Komarnytskyi’s, several figures in the case, including officials of Kyiv City State Administration and Kyiv City Council deputies, had already been detained. Yet, nothing was said about this at the session, and if not for European Solidarity and their blocking of the tribune, the needed decisions for Komarnytskyi would have been adopted and signed. European Solidarity’s demand to adopt an appeal against the inadmissibility of repression came very untimely, and Bondarenko couldn’t resolve the situation, leaving his place in the presidium. For this, he received a reprimand from Komarnytskyi.

Regarding Vitaliy Klychko, it seems he distances himself from his right-hand man in the Kyiv City Council by all means. From the decisions Bondarenko is promoting there. Recently, Klychko has been on trips abroad: Munich, London, Brussels. The Kyiv head returned to Ukraine not long ago, but he remains a separate political figure in a distinct informational space from this scandal involving land fraud schemes.

Volodymyr Bondarenko is involved in all the scams. However, it is unlikely that he acts without the knowledge of his formal boss Vitaliy Klychko. Since the latter, after the scandal erupted, dismissed Kyiv City State Administration officials caught on NABU tapes, yet prefers to remain silent about Volodymyr Bondarenko. Allegedly, Bondarenko himself should resign. At the same time, Vitaliy Klychko chooses to stay quiet about the fact that Volodymyr Bondarenko was elected from Klychko’s UDAR party. The election law includes a provision allowing any party to recall a deputy. Only the will and desire of the party head are needed.

Nonetheless, Klychko quietly refrained from mentioning this possibility. An extraordinary session wasn’t even convened – a direct power of the city head – for the resignation of the Kyiv City Council secretary and discussion of all the findings that NABU revealed, and investigative reporters wrote about. Moreover, according to information from the Kyiv City Council corridors, Volodymyr Bondarenko is now actively running from office to office, trying to negotiate and buy his way out.

In the meantime, it is worth reminding that the NABU leaks are not a spontaneous action. The figures were listened to for at least eight months, and all their activities were meticulously documented. So Bondarenko’s involvement in the criminal case clearly extends beyond the episode with Komarnytskyi’s reprimand for the unclosed session.

But even from what has entered the public domain, it is clear that Volodymyr Bondarenko is a key participant in Denys Komarnytskyi’s organized crime group. He actively worked for him, presented necessary decisions to the Kyiv City Council, and ensured their approval and implementation. It was Bondarenko who carried all the land fraud cases, prepared by Klychko’s deputy Olenich and the head of the Kyiv City Council Land Commission Terentyev, through the Kyiv City Council.

It is worth recalling that Volodymyr Bondarenko was recently exposed by journalists in a land fraud scheme in the Holosiivskyi district of Kyiv, organized repressions against environmental NGOs, and it was Bondarenko who, together with Klychko’s deputy Lymar, developed and pushed through a corrupt decision blocking the creation of protected areas in Kyiv through the Kyiv City Council.