Thanks to whom and how MP Andriy Ryba escaped from the army and Ukraine

Land carve-up by Andriy Ryba and Bohdan Andriyiv

How Ksenia Ryba, wife of MP Ryba, enriched herself on state land

How did MP Andriy Ryba accumulate tens of thousands of dollars with his meager official income?

Income and monetary assets of fugitive Uzhhorod MP Andriy Ryba

How Andrii Ryba's mother-in-law and father-in-law made money on Uzhhorod city tenders

At the age of 40, Andriy Ryba managed to become a deputy of the Uzhgorod City Council three times, get involved in several land corruption scandals, and, having year after year meager official incomes, amass a fortune with which he escaped from Ukraine during the Russian Federation's full-scale war against Ukraine. And together with him and his wife Ksenia Ryba, also a deputy and also from the European Solidarity party, whose parents, Oksana Delegan and Volodymyr Kovalenko, clearly not without the help of their son-in-law, created Ksemar LLC, which captured the food market for patients of Uzhhorod hospitals , receiving unimpeded victories in tenders.

Thanks to whom and how MP Andriy Ryba escaped from the army and Ukraine

Deputy and former secretary of the Uzhgorod City Council Andriy Ryba joined the ranks of the Uzhgorod Territorial Defense after the start of a full-scale war between Russia and Ukraine in 2022. Obviously, counting on having to serve at home, posting photos in uniform on social networks and earning political points and real money from the state. But after the command began to use the TRO forces on the eastern front, Rybu was blown away from the army like the wind.

Already in May 2022, the mobilized head of the faction of the "European Solidarity" party took a vacation, then went on sick leave, and after that he did not return to the army. Ryba stayed at the front in the Donetsk region for only about 20 days in April 2022 in the Donetsk region, but at the same time his military unit paid him 345,821 hryvnias for the year - while he was on business trips and on sick leave.

According to the journalists, the deputy issued "false" documents about his illness for money, thanks to which he was dismissed from the army. And already on January 12, 2023, Andriy Ryba went abroad, from where he never returned. According to Osint Global, a close friend of Ryba, the mayor of Uzhhorod Bohdan Andriyev, issued documents for the deputy on a foreign business trip, thanks to which he crossed the border.

Apparently, the mayor of Uzhgorod helped not only Ryba in this way, because in November 2023 SBU officers searched the mayor's office as part of a criminal investigation into the illegal departure of Uzhgorod deputies on vacation abroad under the guise of "business trips." As the law enforcement officers discovered, invitations from foreign organizations were used for this, which were not properly registered and bypassed the electronic document management system. That is, in other words, they were most likely not genuine.

Fleeing from Ukraine, Deputy Ryba with his wife Ksenia (until 2023 - also a deputy from the "European Solidarity" party of the Kholmkiv village council) and daughter Olivia first rested for about a month in the Dominican Republic, then for almost a month in Italy. After resting, the couple flew to Canada, where they remain to this day. The fugitive did not fill out a deputy's mandate, so he is still registered in the Uzhhorod City Council and fills out declarations as its deputy. According to the declaration for 2023, from March 10, 2023, Andriy Ryba rents a house in Canada. What size and at what price - the deputy does not specify.

In addition, it is known from his declaration that Andrii Ryba has been working at the ALM ink corporation in the city of Edmonton for the past year and a half, where he earned 976,000 hryvnias in 2023. From the analysis of information about ALM Inc on social networks and the official website, it is a small, little-known delivery company with 32 followers on Linkedin, which only employs expats from different countries around the world.

The deputy's wife, Ksenia Ryba, earned even less in 2023 — only 456,000 hryvnias of income from business activities. That kind of money — $36,000 a year — is obviously not enough to live in Canada, where you need to rent a house and support your daughter. But Andriy and Ksenia Ryba fled Ukraine far from empty-handed. Where and how in Ukraine the fortunes of the Transcarpathian representatives of Petro Poroshenko's party were earned, and we will find out further.

Land carve-up by Andriy Ryba and Bohdan Andriyiv

"At first, I played a principled game, but when it smelled of oldies, I sold my guts. A moral freak, a brawler and just plain unprincipled," — this is what residents of Uzhgorod say about MP Andrii Ryba in the comments on one of the local websites.

40-year-old Andriy Ryba was elected a deputy of the Uzhgorod City Council back in 2006, when he was a student of the history faculty of the Uzhhorod National University. Then he was elected to the city council from the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko party, but was expelled from the BYU faction with the wording "for non-implementation of the decisions of the statutory bodies of the party, violation of party ethics and discipline, discrediting the party." The reason was Ryba's participation in a corruption scandal related to the large-scale embezzlement of land in Uzhhorod under the leadership of ex-mayor Serhiy Ratushnyak. Therefore, in 2015, Ryba was already elected from the "UDAR" party, which later merged with "European Solidarity", from which Ryba became a deputy of the Uzhhorod City Council for the third time in 2020. Then the deputies elected him secretary of the city council, a position he held until 2021.

At the end of his career as the head of the city council, Ryba again became a figure in the land scandal: on March 30, 2021, the city council made a decision to transfer the city's green zones and residential areas to private hands, despite the fact that the city's chief architect had warned the city mayor the day before Andriiyev and his friend, the secretary of the city council, Rybu, that a number of projects do not comply with urban planning documentation. But Ryba did not inform the deputies about it.

"This "deriban" was approved without comments by the secretary of the city council Andriy Ryba ("European Solidarity") and the deputy mayor Yuri Rakhivskyi ("Servant of the people").Doubtful decisions at the session were made, in particular, because of the mentioned officials, because they actually misled both the deputies and the public with their positive approvals," local mass media wrote. And human rights defenders noted that the actions of the city mayor Andriyiv ​​and the secretary of the city council Ryba fell under the criminal offense of abuse of official position. But, as often happens, the law enforcement officers did not touch the powerful.

In addition, under the leadership of Andriy Ryba, the Uzhhorod City Council in 2021 effectively raided 6.5 hectares of land used by the "Module M" plant (formerly Uzhhorodprilad). Deputies took away and leased the land plots of the plant to five bogus "laying" companies connected to the mayor Bohdan Andriiv.

This issue was brought up for consideration by Uzhhorod deputies about ten times, but the secretary of the city council, Andriy Ryba, did not stop and pressed the issue again and again until the attempt to "deriban" was blocked due to the seizure of land as part of a corruption case. However, this did not help either: the investigating judge of the Uzhhorod City District Court, Dematradze, subsequently hastily lifted the arrest, and the lands were transferred to the mayor's private companies. Andriy Ryba was one of the deputies who voted "for" the dubious decision.

Andriy Ryba personally got the city land. Back in 2010, when he served his first term as a city council member and was the head of the Zakarpattia "Young Motherland", his sister Kateryna Tovtin received from the Uzhhorod City Council on January 14, 2010 a state deed for the ownership of a plot of land with an area of ​​almost 1,000 square meters in Uzhhorod on Krymska Street — almost in the center and at the same time near the forest (cadastral number: 2110100000:41:001:0349).

On August 18, 2021, Kateryna Tovtin gave this plot of land to her deputy brother, and he, in turn, sold it for 1 million 828 thousand 430 hryvnias (50 thousand US dollars), when he had already fled Ukraine in 2023. That is, Andriy Ryba, using his official position as a deputy, got ownership of city land, fictitiously registering it for his sister, and earned almost 2 million hryvnias from it, which he spends today in Canada.

How Ksenia Ryba, wife of MP Ryba, enriched herself on state land

Ksenia Ryba, deputy of the Kholmkiv village council from the same party "European Solidarity", did not lag behind, and even overtook her husband. In 2021, she received two plots of land from the Kholmkivska council, of which she was a deputy: on June 29, the village council transferred to her a plot of 58 square meters in the village of Minai on Svobody Street, and a month later, on July 14, another plot with an area of ​​0.04 hectares in the same village of Minai on March 8th street.

Ksenia Ryba immediately sold the second plot two months later to Mykhailo Misyuk, director of the State Archives of the Zakarpattia region, for… 110 dollars, although the market value of land in the village of Minai varies from 2,500 to 5,000 dollars per hectare. That is, the real price of the plot, which Andriy Ryba's wife sold, could reach up to 20 thousand US dollars. That is, it is likely that tens of thousands of dollars went past the tax and declarations of BPPshnik deputies.

But this was not the first fictitious land deal between Ksenia Ryba and Mykhailo Misiuk. In the same year, 2021, she sold a 0.08-hectare plot of land to the wife of the director of the archive, Victoria Misyuk, again in the village of Minai on the street of March 8, 89 for the same ridiculous amount - for 10 thousand 100 hryvnias or 371 dollars. What, in fact, both Ryba and his wife "forgot" to indicate in their declarations.

On that plot of land was a residential building with an area of ​​250 square meters, which Ryba declared as an object of unfinished construction with an area of ​​124 square meters. Ksenia Ryba also sold it to Victoria Misiuk for UAH 501,300 ($18,423). The market value of such a house is about 150 thousand dollars, that is, the price was underestimated by 8 times.

According to Osint Global, Mykhailo Misiuk is a close friend of Andrii Ryba, they communicate regularly. So, all this looks like a corruption scheme in which Ksenia Ryba, using her position as a deputy, received state-owned land, which she then sold for nothing to Mykhailo Misyuk, apparently thus helping him to legalize corruption income in the amount of up to 200,000 US dollars and get illegal profit herself.

How did MP Andriy Ryba accumulate tens of thousands of dollars with his meager official income?

Interesting fact. In 2015, Andriy Ryba entered the TOP-10 ranking of the richest deputies of the Uzhhorod City Council according to the calculations of the Uzhhorod Press Club. But at the same time, in 2016, when deputies first filled out electronic declarations, which are still available to us today, Andriy Ryba did not declare either housing (even rented) or large incomes (in that year, a deputy and head of the secretariat of the Transcarpathian Territorial Organization of the Party "Block Petra Poroshenko "Solidarity" earned only 52 thousand hryvnias and received 36 thousand hryvnias in interest from the bank). But Ryba showed monetary savings in the amount of 40 thousand 209 dollars.

It is not known what amount of savings Ryba indicated in the paper declaration for 2015, which was the focus of the journalists preparing the rating, but, judging by everything, Deputy Ryba saved his savings not at all from his salary, but, probably, from some unofficial income - with the salary of a party official you can't collect millions from an employee.

Because in 2017 Ryba earned 263 thousand 464 hryvnias, of which 100 thousand were insurance payments, in 2018 - only 36 thousand 445 hryvnias, in 2019 Ryba earned nothing at all, in 2020 - 27 thousand 900 hryvnias , and in 2021 his income again amounted to 0 hryvnias. At the same time, Ryba's monetary assets almost did not change from year to year, that is, if his declaration is to be believed, it looks like the deputy, in addition to living on the street, also spent pennies on his life.

Income and monetary assets of fugitive Uzhhorod MP Andriy Ryba

Except his wife Ksenia, whom Ryba married in 2017, saved the family budget. In 2013, she registered a sole proprietorship with the main type of activity — retail trade in non-specialized stores of food, beverages, and tobacco products. In addition, from March 2017 to July 2023, she was the founder and head of LLC "NTV - Impex", which was engaged in the wholesale trade of dairy products, eggs, edible oils and fats. But Ksenia Ryba also earned little: on average, around 650,000 hryvnias per year.

As with Andriy Ryba, his wife did not have her own home, only an unfinished (according to the declaration) house in the village of Minai, which remained officially unfinished close to its sale in 2023. Only in the declaration of Andriy Ryba for 2020 did he suddenly have an apartment of 66 square meters in Uzhhorod, in which he is registered and which became his property as early as January 16, 1986. That is, in fact, for 5 years, Deputy Ryba made himself an official homeless person, entering known false data in the declaration, for which he should have been responsible. But he didn't carry it.

And one more nuance that indicates that the Ryba deputy family obviously had and lived on unofficial corruption income. According to the declaration for 2020, the Ryba family received an income of $19,635, of which Andriy Ryba's income was $1,004, and his wife Ksenia's income from business activities was $18,631. Instead, Andriy and Ksenia saved $18,760 this year. That is, only $875 was left for a family of three to live on for a whole year, which is $73 a month, which, of course, looks fantastic. So, there were some other unofficial profits that were not declared.

How Andrii Ryba's mother-in-law and father-in-law made money on Uzhhorod city tenders

Ksenia Ryba's mother can answer the question of where the money came from. 51-year-old Oksana Delegan works at Ksemar LLC, which is engaged in restaurant activities and provides mobile food services. The founder of the company is Volodymyr Kovalenko, husband of Oksana Delegan and father of Ksenia Ryba.

Ksenia's parents started this business immediately after she married city council member Andrii Ryba. Immediately from the moment of its foundation, the company began to win city tenders for the provision of food services and receive an income of up to 3.2 million hryvnias per year. Since its birth, "Ksemar" LLC has earned more than UAH 12 million on government contracts.

The main customer of the services of "Ksemar" LLC is the utility company "Uzhgorod City Maternity Hospital". In addition, the company received its last contract from the KP "Uzhgorod City Multidisciplinary Clinical Hospital" of the Uzhgorod City Council. In 2021, the Uzhgorod Maternity Hospital was caught colluding in the tender for the organization of patient meals: only 2 performers took part in the tender - "Ksemar" LLC and a local entrepreneur with the main activity of "advertising agencies", who submitted documents with the same printing defect. That is, with a high degree of probability, it was a fictitious participant to win precisely "Ksemar" LLC. In 2024, there were no competitors at Ksemar LLC in the tenders for the maternity hospital and the city hospital — the firm received the order directly.

The mother-in-law of MP Andriy Ryba is listed in Ksemar LLC as a production manager. However, it is she who acts as the company's representative at tenders, that is, she is actually engaged in ensuring year after year the company's victories at tenders with only four cooks in the staff, actually taking away the food market for hospital patients in Uzhgorod. It is clear that this did not happen without the help of his son-in-law, a deputy and former secretary of the city council. It is likely that the Ryba family may have unofficial income from hospital tenders that is not included in their declarations.

Or from illegal passenger transportation, for which the residents of Uzhhorod accuse Andriy Ryba and the city mayor Bohdan Andriyev.

According to our data, Andriy Ryba regularly communicates with Mykhailo Lytko, whose number in the Getcontact application is associated with a number of signatures, such as "Misha Rozvozka" and "Misha Route Bus".

Or from the land deryban, from which Ryba began his career as a deputy, and from which he ended his career as secretary of the city council.

In any case, it is not completely clear - why Andriy Ryba, a person who got rich on the neck of the city and fled with the loot from Ukraine, is still a deputy of the Uzhgorod City Council? And why are there still no criminal proceedings against him?

Video format of the investigation on the Osint Global YouTube channel