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The 74-year-old mother of a prosecutor in Kyiv has acquired real estate with a market value of more than $1 million although she is retired in a country where the average pension does not exceed about $150 while still running her own business that has been producing losses, according to an investigation by the Ukrainian outlet hromadske.
Angelina Donchenko’s most expensive purchases were made while her son, Serhiy Pavchuk, has been serving as a senior official in the General Prosecutor’s Office overseeing organized-crime cases since at least 2021 the report said.
Journalists reported that Pavchuk uses the properties registered in his mother’s name and drives a car listed as hers. Much of what she acquired was bought below market value, and some structures appear to have been built without official registration, reporters found.
During her professional career, Donchenko ran several businesses which - according to tax reports seen by reporters - could not have accumulated enough money to purchase the properties at market value. Her current company engaged in wholesale trade in chemical products has mainly recorded losses.
The centerpiece of the family’s assets is property in an upscale gated development outside Kyiv. Land records cited by hromadske show that Donchenko acquired two adjoining plots there in July 2023 totaling about 2,000 square meters, paying roughly the equivalent of $71,000 at the time — far below the roughly $290,000 suggested by comparable listings.
Satellite imagery reviewed by reporters indicates that construction of a large house and auxiliary buildings on the site may have begun as early as 2019, with structures visible by 2020. Journalists said they found no registry entries for those buildings, meaning the structures do not formally exist on paper.
Architect Viktor Hleba estimated the land’s market value in 2023 at about $320,000 and the buildings at up to $800,000.
The outlet also reported that Donchenko purchased a 75-square-meter apartment in Kyiv in 2019 that Pavchuk is said to use. Official filings list its price at just over the equivalent of $76,000, while the developer’s prices at the time were closer to about $95,000, according to the report. That same year, a 2016 Toyota Camry was registered in her name18 at a declared value journalists said was below market19.
Questions about the source of funds intensified, hromadske reported, after Donchenko — whose business activity appeared limited — loaned roughly $200,000, in 2020 to a Lviv entrepreneur who later bought four apartments in historic buildings near the city center and pledged them to her as collateral through at least 2027.
Roman Verbovskyi, a lawyer with Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Action Center, told the outlet that such arrangements can be used to convert questionable money flows into property if a loan is never repaid. Journalists said they were unable to obtain comment from Donchenko or Pavchuk’s wife.
In the prosecutor's office's response to journalists' inquiries, prosecutor Serhiy Pavchuk insists that the property belonging to his mother was acquired with funds obtained from business activities—specifically, those of his mother and his late father .
