Operations “Forest Gump” and “Themis”: How, According to NABU, a Raider Network Worth Hundreds of Millions of Hryvnias Relied on Judges and Lawyers

In August 2026, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAP) disclosed details of two linked operations — “Forest Gump” and “Themis.” According to the investigation, an organized group seized expensive real estate and enterprise assets over several years, using a combination of legal tools: interference with the Ministry of Justice's information systems, forged documents, and court rulings. This is reported by RBC-Ukraine, citing open NABU and SAP materials and data from the Unified State Register of Court Decisions. According to the investigation, the scale of the scheme is measured in hundreds of millions of hryvnias, with individual episodes involving properties in central Kyiv worth over half a billion hryvnias.

Scale and Chronology of the Schemes

According to the published materials, in the fall of 2025 the members of the organization seized two enterprises with a combined asset value of 248 million UAH. A separate episode, according to NABU, was an attempt to take control of real estate in central Kyiv valued at more than 500 million hryvnias. The bureau's open materials name the leaders and members of the criminal organization, as well as officials, bankers, and trusted persons who, according to the investigation, facilitated the transfer of control over assets through judicial and administrative procedures. The chronology of the documented episodes covers the period from 2015 to 2026, indicating that the group's activity was systematic rather than one-off.

Who Is Named in the Materials

An analysis of open publications and court registers makes it possible to trace a number of names mentioned in the context of the investigation. Among them are former Deputy Head of the President's Office Iryna Mudra, Judge of the Kyiv City Commercial Court Pavlo Cheberyak, and Serhiy Boyarchuk, founder of the law firm “Aleksiev, Boyarchuk and Partners.” The latter structure has repeatedly appeared in publications about corporate conflicts and raider schemes since 2017, when it was mentioned, in conjunction with Judge Cheberyak, in materials about Artem Pshonka's circle. In 2018, Anatoliy Yurkevych, owner of the “Magellan” shopping mall, in a public statement accused “Sberbank” of a raider seizure of the asset and named Artem Podolsky — a partner at the same law firm — among the possible members of the organization.

The “Khimmashproekt” and “Kyiv” Lines

In 2025, the outlet Bagnet described the conflict around the design institute “Khimmashproekt” as a scheme involving approximately 6,000 m² of real estate in central Kyiv; the publication linked Boyarchuk to judges of the commercial court. In February 2026, a number of outlets reported on attempts to take control of LLC “Enterprise “Kyiv,” where legal support, according to the authors, was provided by the firm “Aleksiev, Boyarchuk and Partners,” and a representative of the firm, Oleg Beskorovainyi, appeared in the documents as the representative of the company involved in the conflict. The “CHESTNO” movement previously cited materials of a 2015 criminal case against LLC “Golube Sianie” (Blue Radiance) — a former law firm co-founded by Serhiy Aleksiev and Serhiy Boyarchuk. According to the investigation's position, the bankruptcy in this case may have been artificial and used to complicate the identification of the figures in the scheme of tax evasion and misappropriation of property.

Procedural Links: Boyarchuk, Nikolaenko, and Cheberyak

A separate line of the investigation can be traced through the bankruptcy trustee Dmytro Nikolaenko, who appears in a number of bankruptcy cases in which Serhiy Boyarchuk was a participant or property administrator. In particular, Nikolaenko was the representative of Boyarchuk's property administrator in case No. 904/937/25 (LLC “Sports Club “Dnipro-1”) and in case No. 907/367/25 (bankruptcy of the KNPP “Zakarpattia Regional Clinical Dental Polyclinic”). In March 2026, Boyarchuk became the sole owner, director, and ultimate beneficiary of LLC “FC “ALCOR CAPITAL,” and a few months later it was this company that, in case No. 904/3636/26 on the bankruptcy of LLC “Verkhovets Oil Extraction Plant,” proposed Nikolaenko's candidacy to the court for the position of property administrator. As emphasized in the materials, such a procedural link in itself does not indicate the unlawfulness of the participants' actions in the procedure. A separate line is traced between Boyarchuk and Judge Cheberyak: in case No. 910/13240/22 on the bankruptcy of CJSC “Plant “Kuznya na Rybolovnomu,” Cheberyak opened the proceedings, and Boyarchuk was appointed property administrator; in 2026 Boyarchuk continued to exercise these powers, while Cheberyak considered his motions. Their surnames also appear in 2026 proceedings.

Contradictory Data

In analyzing the materials, a number of significant caveats must be taken into account. First, in the open publications of RBC-Ukraine and other outlets, the names of Mudra, Cheberyak, and Boyarchuk are cited in the context of “tracing mentions” in court registers and media publications, and not as formal charges in specific episodes of the “Forest Gump” and “Themis” operations. In NABU's materials, according to the outlet, “leaders and members of the organization” are named, however, the direct matching of these lists with the surnames listed above is not always unambiguous in open sources. Second, some episodes are dated 2015–2018 and are linked to the criminal proceedings against LLC “Golube Sianie” and to statements by private individuals (in particular, Yurkevych), which chronologically and legally differ from the current 2026 operations. Third, procedural links — such as the appointment of a property administrator or the proposal of a bankruptcy trustee's candidacy — are explicitly stated in the source texts as not constituting evidence of unlawfulness. Thus, there is a gap between the confirmed facts of NABU/SAP activity and the analytical connections built by journalists on the basis of open court data, which requires careful interpretation.

Context: NABU Investigations in 2026

The “Forest Gump” and “Themis” operations fit into a broader cycle of anti-corruption investigations that NABU and SAP are conducting in 2026. In parallel with the case on raider schemes in Kyiv, the bureau is investigating episodes of corruption in the energy sector, on which, according to media reports, the President's Office publicly commented for the first time. Also falling within the law enforcement authorities' purview are episodes related to the transfer of real estate by figures in previously opened cases. The totality of these investigations points to a systematic approach to uncovering schemes of illegal transfer of control over assets through judicial and administrative mechanisms.