As of October 2026, there are 478 individuals in Ukraine, each of whom is registered as the owner or beneficial owner of at least 50 companies. The maximum number of companies linked to a single individual reaches 5,889, according to data from the Unified State Register published by the analytical service “OpenDataBot” on October 26.
According to the study, Vitaliy Ilnitsky of Kyiv remains the individual with the largest number of registered companies, listed as the owner of 5,889 enterprises.
Second place goes to Ruslan Merzlyakov from Donetsk, who is linked to 2,221 companies. Thus, the number of companies registered to the leader of the ranking is more than double that of his closest competitor.
In third place is Vladislav Melekhin from Kyiv, who is listed as the owner or beneficiary of 858 companies.
Fourth place goes to Andriy Puya from Zenkiv in the Poltava region with 799 companies, and fifth place goes to Kateryna Doroshenko from Kyiv with 674 companies.
The top ten also includes Valeriy Ilienko (637 companies), Yuriy Pukhir (571), Andriy Sosonny (525), Tetyana Svyrydyuk (455), and Valeriy Malakhov (408).
Thus, even in tenth place on the ranking, the number of legal entities linked to a single person exceeds 400.
In the study, “mass owners” are defined as individuals who appear in government registries as owners or beneficiaries of at least 50 registered companies. However, the existence of such a record does not mean that the individual single-handedly manages all of the relevant companies.
As Miroslav Laba, a tax and regulatory policy specialist at the Economic Expert Platform, noted, a large number of companies owned or controlled by a single individual does not in itself constitute a violation of the law.
At the same time, the expert believes that the registration of hundreds or thousands of companies under a single individual may indicate the use of nominal directors or owners.
According to him, it is important for tax authorities to identify the actual officers who carry out business operations and are responsible for fulfilling tax obligations.
The use of nominal owners, in the expert’s assessment, is considered a tax risk factor, as it may be accompanied by an opaque management structure and potential tax evasion schemes.
At the same time, the mere fact that a person appears in the registry of a large number of companies does not constitute evidence of fictitious business operations, legal violations, or tax evasion.
The “OpenDataBot” study is based on registration data regarding company owners and ultimate beneficial owners. It does not draw conclusions about the actual financial condition, business activity, or tax compliance of the companies included in the list.
Source: “OpenDataBot,” study “478 Mass Owners of Companies in Ukraine,” October 26, 2026.
Starting September 1, the Registry of Type Approval Certificates and Manufacturer-Issued Certificates of Conformity for Wheeled Vehicles and Equipment will become operational in Ukraine, marking a full transition from paper-based records to a unified electronic system, according to a statement from the Ministry of Recovery, Infrastructure, and Transport of Ukraine.
“We are digitizing a procedure that has essentially remained paper-based for years. The registry makes it possible to view all necessary information in a single system and verify it without paper documents,” said Serhiy Derkach, First Deputy Minister of Recovery, Infrastructure, and Transport, as quoted in the press release.
The ministry clarified that the registry is currently operating in a pilot phase, with 33 vehicle manufacturers and 20 certification bodies participating in the testing.
The next phase is expected to begin on September 27, when the new technical regulation for the approval of the design of wheeled vehicles, their components, and equipment takes effect.
Under the technical regulation, certificates will be issued exclusively in electronic form and entered into the Registry.
It is noted that previously issued paper certificates will remain valid, and once the relevant information about them is entered into the registry, no separate reissuance will be required.
Among other things, the ministry reported that it is working on changing the approach to vehicles imported into Ukraine from abroad.
“The current practice in Ukraine of certifying such vehicles prior to their first state registration does not correspond to the model applied in the European Union,” the ministry explained.
Specifically, as part of European integration, Ukraine must transition from certifying imported used vehicles to requiring mandatory technical inspections prior to their first state registration in Ukraine.
The removal of Ukrainian officials’ electronic declarations from the state registry does not mean that previously published information has completely disappeared from the public domain, notes Opendatabot.
Many documents were publicly available for several years before the mechanism for hiding them was introduced in late 2023. During that time, the data may have been saved by journalists, civil society organizations, analytical services, and online archives.
However, the publicly available portion of the declarations no longer contains residential addresses, tax identification numbers, or a number of other direct personal identifiers.
The mechanism to restrict access was introduced to protect military personnel, law enforcement officers, and other officials amid a full-scale war. A government agency may appeal to the National Agency for Corruption Prevention (NAZK) if it believes that the publication of a document poses a threat to the declarant or their family.
As of July 2026, more than 445,000 declarations for the years 2015–2026 have been removed from public access.
Source: https://opendatabot.ua/analytics/hidden-declarations-2026
Most of the declarations by Ukrainian officials that were removed from the public registry pertain to the period before the start of the full-scale war, according to Opendatabot.
The largest number of hidden documents was submitted for 2016—94,968 thousand, or more than one in five of the removed declarations. Another 72,068 thousand documents relate to 2020.
At the same time, the share of hidden declarations for 2016 accounts for about 9% of the total number submitted during that period, and for 2020—about 8%.
By comparison: among the documents submitted during the full-scale war, about 2% of the declarations were removed from public access.
This difference is partly explained by the fact that significantly more documents were submitted between 2016 and 2020. Additionally, once access restrictions are approved, all declarations belonging to a specific individual—including those published long before the mechanism was introduced—may be removed from the registry.
In total, as of July 2026, access to 445,536 thousand declarations filed by 99,087 thousand individuals has been restricted.
Source: https://opendatabot.ua/analytics/hidden-declarations-2026
According to a report by Interfax-Ukraine, the architecture of the Unified Weapons Registry (UWR) eliminates the possibility of any “gray areas” or uncertified third-party software integrations; the goal of the UWR is to provide citizens with a modern service, and the state with reliable control, emphasizes Maksym Khimchenko, director of the state-owned enterprise “Infotech.”
In an exclusive interview with the Interfax-Ukraine agency, Khimchenko explained that the weapons registry is a system that is constantly being improved.
According to the director of “Infotech,” when the registry was launched in 2023, it was built on a fundamentally different foundation.
“We had to deal with a colossal volume of fragmented data that had accumulated over decades in various formats. We carried out a titanic effort: we unified this data and created an electronic classifier of weapons, ammunition, and explosives (WAME),” Khimchenko emphasized.
He explained that now each item has a clear digital profile, which prevents the kind of manipulation typical of the old “manual” management system.
The director of “Infotech” noted that the creation of a branched system of user accounts in the ERZ has changed the philosophy of interaction. “Today, the ERZ is a unified ecosystem where each participant has their own secure workspace—the architecture eliminates the possibility of any ‘gray areas’ or uncertified third-party software connections from the very beginning,” he noted.
Khimchenko added: “This is our own product, where the path of a weapon from the store to the owner is completely transparent. Our goal is to provide citizens with a modern service and the state with ironclad control.”
He emphasized that the path toward tightening regulations and creating a proprietary closed ecosystem was the only correct one for national security.
Speaking about feedback on the operation of the weapons registry, the director of “Infotech” noted that the Ministry of Internal Affairs is engaged in an open dialogue with market participants.
“They voice their needs and comments, after which we work through them together, formulate requirements, prepare functional specifications, and move on to technical implementation and deployment,” said Khimchenko.
State Enterprise “INFOTECH” is the operator and developer of the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ digital systems, ensuring their creation, operation, and 24/7 support.
https://interfax.com.ua/news/general/1162589.html
The National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NAPC) has opened access to the Unified state register of persons who have committed corruption or corruption-related offenses, the press service of the agency reports.
“With the beginning of a full-scale invasion, state bodies, including the NAPC, had to limit access to a number of registers, including the Unified state register of persons who committed corruption or corruption-related offenses … taking into account the resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine “Some issues of ensuring the functioning of information and communication systems, electronic communication systems, public electronic registers under martial law” from 12.03.2022 ¹ 263″, – stated in the message published on the website
At the same time, the agency notes that there is significant public interest in opening the data of this Register.
“Lack of access to such information significantly complicates the activities of state bodies and other organizations, in particular when appointing applicants for relevant positions, public procurement and other transactions and the like,” the report stresses.
In addition, the Ministry of Defense gave a response to the NAPC about the absence of risks in case of restoration of access to the Register, however, provided that will not reflect information about the place of work, as well as the position at the time of committing a person of corruption or corruption-related offense.
In turn, the head of the agency, Alexander Novikov, noted that the open data of the Register is a powerful anti-corruption tool.
“The opening of the data of the Register of persons who committed corruption and corruption-related offenses, indicates that, taking into account the security aspects can be open and the data of the Register of declarations”, – said the head of the NAPC.
The agency expects the adoption by the Verkhovna Rada of the bill №9534, restoring the electronic declaration of the state of officials, which was suspended in connection with the introduction of martial law, the bill should also regulate the issue of public access to the data of the Register of declarations.
The Unified State Register of persons who have committed corruption and corruption-related offenses can be viewed at the link: https://corruptinfo.nazk.gov.ua.
The NACC reminds that this register contains information about all individuals and legal entities that have committed corruption offenses. In addition, in the register you can get a certificate on the presence or absence of information about yourself and the legal person to whom criminal law measures have been applied for a corruption offense.
The NAPC is the administrator of this registry since February 2019.
