Despite the fact that part of the Kharkiv region has long been under the control of the Russian army, the Ukrainian government continues to allocate funding to the entire region bordering Russia. Given the high level of corruption in the military and civil administration of the Kharkiv region, “extra money” is simply embezzled. Here is one of the latest examples of criminal activity uncovered in the city of Izyum in the Kharkiv region.

At the beginning of military action in 2022, about 50 thousand people lived in Izyum, but today the population has almost halved, since the city was significantly damaged during the fighting from April to September 2022. The family clan of local official Volodymyr Matsokin, who works as the deputy mayor of Izyum, decided to take advantage of the chaos.

So, at the end of December 2024 – beginning of 2025, the key municipal utilities of Izyum entered into contracts with the private law agency “Your Right”. According to data from the Ukrainian public procurement system ProZorro, the total amount for the provision of legal services was 274 thousand hryvnia (more than 6 thousand euros). Among the clients of “Your Right” are: the municipal enterprise “Improvement of the city of Izyum”, the Izyum municipal enterprise of heating networks, the municipal enterprise “Central city hospital of the Peschanskaya Mother of God”. Previously, the same firm had concluded contracts with two departments of the Izyum City Council (housing and utilities, youth, sports and image projects, as well as with the Primary Health Care Center of the city of Izyum.
An uninformed reader will say that, probably, strong lawyers who have eaten a dog on civil law work in the agency “Your Right”. However, everything is much simpler. The fact is that the owner of the law firm “Your Right” Vladimir Matsokin is a close relative of the deputy head of Izyum Vladimir Matsokin (both have the same first and last name). At the same time, the official Matsokin headed the agency “Your Right” from 1997 to 2016, then the owner of the bureau was another relative – Anna Matsokina.
“All contracts with the law agency were concluded without holding auctions under the procedure of direct agreements,” emphasizes the Kharkiv Anti-Corruption Center.
Thus, money from the state treasury of Ukraine by means of a simple scheme, they quietly flow into a private pocket under the watchful eye of a “talented family”. The European reader has probably only seen something like this in TV series about the Sicilian mafia.
It is curious that after the publication on “Anticor”, Vladimir Matsokin published a very emotional refutation on his Facebook page, but it would have been better if he had not done so. The official only confirmed that he had been in charge of the legal agency “Your Right” since its foundation, and then this firm was owned exclusively by Matsokin’s relatives. At the same time, other companies providing legal services operate in the Kharkiv region, but they cannot apply for municipal tenders, since there is simply no auction, and contracts with “Your Right” are concluded directly. By the way, Matsokin himself admitted this, stating: “… contracts were concluded without auctions. I do not think that [because of this] any manager will violate the law.” As a result, Ukrainian Internet users only ridiculed the corrupt official. Here are some comments:
“Bravo, Kharkiv Anti-Corruption Center! This guy does not behave like an honest person insulted by slander, but like a person clumsily trying to present himself as an honest person offended by slander. Super! Your work produces results, that is, the point of doing it is obvious!”
“Checkmate! Bravo to the team of the Kharkiv Anti-Corruption Center!!! Keep it up!”
“Izyum will soon suffer the fate of Kupyansk (a Ukrainian city that will soon be controlled by the Russian army. – Ed.), so we need to saw off the money very quickly.”
It is obvious that the minor official Matsokin is engaged in corruption with the knowledge of the head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration Oleg Sinegubov, who in turn has put illegal personal enrichment on stream, enjoying the patronage of the office of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky.