The reason for this appointment may become obvious if we consider ‘Great Construction’ not as an infrastructure, but as a media project. In this area, Tymoshenko already has some experience, because before the President’s Office he owned company ‘Good media’, which, according to the company’s website, specializes in advertising, PR, election campaigns ‘in Ukraine and other CIS countries’. Now the company is owned by Tymoshenko’s wife Alyona.

Mr. Tymoshenko is still listed on the website as the company’s CEO. Ms. Yevheniia Kravchuk, the head of the company’s communication department, is an MP and heads the Servant of the People press service.

The biography on the president’s website states that before ‘Good media’ Kyrylo Tymoshenko worked for ‘Privat TV Dnipro’, and then as a producer for ‘07 Production LLC’ and ‘Mamas Film Production LLC’. The beneficiaries of ‘07 Production’ are Dmytro Firtash and Valerii Khoroshkovskyi, the former head of the Security Service of Ukraine and Customs Service.

‘Mamas Film Production’ is related to other two companies, which were subject to criminal proceeding concerning tax fraud.

Returning to the “Great Construction”, it should be noted that this is not the first political media project of Tymoshenko. He previously worked for the Ukrop party media campaign that began with a scandal about the party’s logo, which used a drawing of Kyiv artist Andrii Yermolenko. Agreements with the author on the use of the logo were reached only after the scandal had broken out. The amount of the agreement was not disclosed, but in an interview, the artist stated that he received 1 hryvnia for his work.

Before Ukrop, Tymoshenko’s company worked with future MPs – Borys Filatov, Vitalii Kuprii and Andrii Denysenko. This cooperation became a source of speculation that Andrii Bohdan brought Tymoshenko to Zelensky. Tymoshenko strongly rejects this, assuming that Ivan Bakanov could have introduced him to the president.

Besides Ukrop, Mr. Tymoshenko worked with Volodymyr Hroisman, Anatolii Hrytsenko and Ihor Kononenko. ‘Multitasking’ of Tymoshenko’s company reached such a level that ‘Good media’ broadcast Petro Poroshenko’s Open Dialogue forum at the same time as Tymoshenko was working for Volodymyr Zelensky’s campaign (the video in which Zelensky called Petro Poroshenko for a debate).

Kyrylo Tymoshenko was satisfied with the media campaign for Ukrop, although he lost the election to the Kyiv City Council in 2015. His father, Vladlen Tymoshenko, became a deputy of the Dnipropetrovsk regional council from Ukrop (in the current convocation from the Servant of the People). The campaign for Volodymyr Zelensky and the Servant of the People had a much better effect on Tymoshenko’s career; he got into the President’s Office and later headed the Coordination Council for the implementation of the ‘Great Construction’ program under the President of Ukraine.

Photo – Kirill Timoshenko|Facebook

Such a success in business brought good financial results. In his declaration for 2019, Kyrylo Tymoshenko indicated two apartments (181 square meters in Kyiv and 60.6 square meters in Dnipro), a 56.7-square-meter house, an 881-square-meter plot of land in Dnipropetrovsk region and three parking spaces in Kyiv. Tymoshenko’s family owns a 2014 Volkswagen Caravelle and a 2017 Porsche Macan, as well as a BMW X5 purchased in June 2019 (a month after being appointed deputy head of the President’s Office), for more than two and a half million hryvnias.

In June 2021, Kyrylo Tymoshenko got into a scandal with this car using ‘cover license plate’. Journalists recorded license plates on his BMW X5, which according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs were not registered for any car. Only law enforcement officers at the time of operational and investigative activities and employees of the Department of State Protection have the right to use such a license plate.

Together with real estate and transport, Kyrylo Tymoshenko also declared professional equipment (possibly, the equipment with which president’s videos are made).

In 2019, Mr. Tymoshenko earned 3,047,834 hryvnias, of which 10,320 hryvnias were social assistance. His wife earned one and a half times more during the same period – 5,149,434 hryvnias. Tymoshenko managed to save as much as 697,941 US dollars, 110,008 euros and 4,035,266 hryvnias (almost everything in cash). His wife has savings of $ 185,160 and 5,829,759 hryvnias, also mostly in cash.

In 2020, Mr. Tymoshenko’s income fell dramatically – to 519,229 hryvnias, of which 3,440 hryvnias were social assistance. His wife retained the status of the main breadwinner of the family, earning as much as 6,409,362 hryvnias, a million more than in 2019. Kyrylo Tymoshenko’s savings also decreased compared to 2019 – 682,057 dollars, 110,002 euros and 3 539,215 hryvnias. His wife has 170,567 dollars and 4,249,645 hryvnias left.

In the family, only Mrs. Tymoshenko can afford expensive purchases. In 2020, she bought an apartment in Kyiv with an area of ​​84.3 square meters and two plots of land in Pidhirtsi (Obukhiv district of Kyiv region) with a total area of ​​613 square meters. In 2021, Alyona Tymoshenko became the owner of a house of 353.9 square meters and a land plot of in the same Pidhirtsi, Kyiv region. The cost of houses in these places is from 250 thousand US dollars and higher.

Besides ‘Goodmedia LLC’, Alyona Tymoshenko owns ‘Ukrainian Film School LLC’ and ‘Dream Film LLC’. In total, business activity in 2020 brought her more than 6 million hryvnias of income. In addition, she received a salary from ‘Ukrainian Film School LLC’, where she worked as a director and co-founder, ‘Media Resources Management Information Agency LLC’ and NGO ‘Union of Entrepreneurs of Television and Film Industry’, one of the founders of which is Andrii Yermak.

In December 2020, the Union of Entrepreneurs of the Television and Film Industry received UAH 5 million from the  Ukrainian State Film Agency for ‘providing members of expert commissions for evaluation of film projects’, being the only participant in the procedure. Another 400,000 hryvnias were received from the same State Agency for the ‘promotion of national films’.

The situation with ‘IA Media Resources Management LLC’ is more interesting. It is owned by Serhii Konnov and Serhii Sozanovskyi (who are co-founders of ‘Ukrainian Film School LLC’ together with Alyona Tymeshenko) via ‘Film UA Managements and Investments LLC’ (and ‘Krunmer Holdings Limited’ from Cyprus). The fact that ‘Ukrainian Film School’ exists based on the structure ‘Film UA is stated on the website of the film school, on the website of ‘Film UA’ group and on their page in Wikipedia.

Companies from ‘Film UA’ group often receive funds for the production from the state budget. For example, ‘Film UA Production LLC’ in September 2020 received 32 million 400 thousand hryvnias for filming ‘And there will be people’. A year before that, in November 2019, it received almost 23 million for shooting the feature film ‘Lemberg’.

Another company in this group, ‘Film UA Distribution LLC’, received almost half a million hryvnias for its film production for Dom TV channel. ‘Film UA Distribution’ received 386 thousand hryvnias in 2020 from the National Public Television and Radio Company of Ukraine for granting the rights to show TV programs.

In November 2019, ‘Film UA Television LLC” received almost one and a half million hryvnias from the State Film Agency for the creation of the non-fiction film ‘Wedding Heritage’. ‘Postmodern LLC’ received over UAH 2 million for oral translation and sound services. In 2020, ‘Animahrad LLC’ received over UAH 60 million in public procurement. For example, 25 million from the State Agency – for filming the cartoon ‘Mavka’. Another 25 million they got from the Ministry of Culture – for shooting a film about Roksolana. Almost UAH 11 million went to filming ‘Club of Knowledgeable’. In 2020, ‘Studio Kinorob LLC’ received more than 15 million hryvnias for the film ‘Pulse’, and in 2021 – another 350,000 hryvnias for its promotion.

Despite the fact that Mr. Tymoshenko has experience only in the field of media and PR, he supervises ‘Great Construction’. It would seem that if not with the quality of construction work, then with the reputation of ‘Great Construction’ everything should be perfect. However, the project gets into new and new scandals. Thanks to the presidential parliament group, almost 100 billion hryvnias will be spent for the ‘Great Construction’ without holding tenders. This decision has already been criticized by the National Agency on Corruption Prevention. They claim there are significant corruption factors concerning the construction of the Great Ring Road in Kyiv and warn that ‘tens of billions of hryvnias will be spent without transparent tender procedures’.

With all this, there is only one question left – what is Kyrylo Tymoshenko doing in the president’s infrastructure projects?