Former Prosecutor General Svyatoslav Piskun was asked to leave a state cottage he has rented for over 10 years in Koncha-Zaspa, an elite housing and recreation area outside Kyiv, following President Volodymyr Zelensky’s order to investigate the legality of the use of the recreation land by former judges, prosecutors, ministers, and state officials.
Piskun went public about his eviction on May 14 during Savik Shuster’s Freedom of Speech TV talk show.
“If the president believes that I am not allowed to live there…and they terminated the lease agreement with me, then I agree with the President’s decision, and, of course, I will move out of there, even though I’m not happy about it,” Piskun said.
He leased a state-owned cottage for the term of 49 years in 2002, when he was appointed prosecutor general for the first time. He said he did it because the state residence provided the security that he needed being prosecutor general. Piskun served as prosecutor general three times until he was removed from the post in 2007. His last tenure lasted only a month.
In 2020, Piskun served as an advisor to Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova for one month. Venediktova herself moved to a state residence after getting the prosecutor general job, also citing security reasons.
Zelensky called on law enforcement to investigate the possible misuse of the state-owned land and houses by former high-level officials outside Kyiv during the May 14 meeting of the National Security and Defense Council he chaired.
As the result of the same meeting, the council imposed individual sanctions against 557 international kingpins and 111 gang leaders.
Zelensky announced that authorities would investigate who lives in over 100 state-owned recreation houses and cottages in the elite area outside Kyiv.
Koncha-Zaspa is one of the most expensive residential areas near Kyiv, full of lavish mansions. The state cottages in Koncha-Zaspa are designated for the use of top officials, and Zelensky himself has moved into one in 2020, citing security reasons. But the president says that many of those who reside in the state houses now are former officials, who pay “a symbolic rent” and even get a 50% refund from the state for any renovation they do.
Among the people who use the state cottages even though they have long left public service, Zelensky named ex-Education Minister Dmytro Tabachnyk and ex-Health Minister Raisa Bohatyryova, both from the government of the disgraced former President Viktor Yanukovych; former Deputy Prime Minister Hennady Zubko and former Prosecutor General Piskun.
Zubko reacted to the accusation, claiming the rent he pays for the house is far from symbolic, and posting on Facebook the bills. According to them, the 265-square-meter house he rents in Koncha-Zaspa cost him Hr 58,000 ($2,000) a month in 2017, Hr 69,000 ($2,500) in 2020, and Hr 104,000 ($3,700) in 2021. The 2021 price is close to what such houses are rented for, according to real estate websites.
Zelensky also raged against his predecessor Petro Poroshenko for allegedly letting former officials live in the state-owned residential area, lifting some of the restrictions in 2014.
Poroshenko’s party reacted by calling on Zelensky to move out from the state residence that he lives in in Koncha-Zaspa.
