Schemes reported that Oleksandr Dubinsky had received more than UAH 3.4 million in payments from Ukraine’s parliament by October 2026, despite having been in custody for nearly three years on suspicion of treason. The central issue is not only the amount, but the rule that separated salary from funds for exercising an MP’s powers.
According to the investigation, Serhii Kalchenko, head of the parliamentary rules committee, said in July that salary is accrued only for time worked. Custody therefore did not create grounds for salary payments. But payments for carrying out parliamentary powers, estimated in the report at about UAH 200,000 a month, were made throughout the period after a person was elected to parliament.
Schemes said the committee unanimously accepted that interpretation. It reported that the Rada’s administrative apparatus began transfers three days later, based on entries in the official state web portal. By October, the total had exceeded UAH 3.4 million.
That reporting does not establish whether every payment was lawful or unlawful. The supplied material does not set out a full breakdown of the transfers, the Rada apparatus’s legal rationale, or its response. Nor does a suspicion of treason amount to a conviction. Yet the committee’s explanation identifies a clear consequence of the approach: holding a parliamentary mandate could trigger substantial public payments even when an MP was unable to perform work in person.
The public-interest question, then, is not a substitute verdict on Dubinsky’s criminal case. It is whether payments intended for parliamentary work should continue under these conditions without a detailed public account of their purpose, oversight and legal basis. Schemes said it had sought comment from Dubinsky through his lawyer and was awaiting a response.
Sources
- Українська правда · Source date: 2026-11-12
Independent editorial content. WUA is not affiliated with any political party. 2026-11-12