“photo ua.depositphotos.comThe scandal surrounding the Warsaw business trip of the director of the State Expert Center of the Ministry of Health Mykhailo Babenka became one of the most acute in the medical field in recent times and demonstrated that…”, — write: www.unian.ua
photo ua.depositphotos.comThe scandal surrounding the Warsaw mission of the director of the State Expert Center of the Ministry of Health, Mykhailo Babenko, became one of the most acute in the medical field in recent times and demonstrated that corruption risks in state bodies responsible for the safety and availability of medicines remain critically high.
This is stated in the article “Glavkom”.
We will remind, in the summer, photos and videos from Warsaw appeared on the network, where Mykhailo Babenko and his deputy Mykhailo Lobas, while on a business trip, spent time in the company of the co-owner of the pharmaceutical company “Ukrfarmgrup” Oleksandr Ivanov.
According to investigators, the trip included hotel stays costing about $1,500 a night, access to the VIP box at an Armin van Buuren concert and private events.
Since the DEC makes key decisions regarding the admission of medicines to the market, such contacts of the center’s management with the top management of the pharmaceutical business were seen as a potential conflict of interest. Deputy of Kyiv Regional Council Volodymyr Horkovenko called the situation “a symbiosis of the state and the pharmaceutical lobby.”
Despite the widespread response, neither the Ministry of Health nor the Cabinet of Ministers publicly responded to the appearance of such accusations.
In addition, activists’ attempts to initiate an official investigation ran into bureaucratic barriers: the petition was twice not allowed to be published on the government portal. Finally, after his post about traveling abroad during the war, citizens registered a corresponding petition.
The financial data of Babenka himself also raised questions. As RBC-Ukraine previously reported, during the full-scale war, he bought a house in the USA, registered a company in Florida and has significant cash assets.
In July, law enforcement officers also conducted searches in affiliated structures of the National Health Service. As RBC-Ukraine reported at the time, we were talking about companies that are providers of medical services for funds managed by the Ministry of Health of Ukraine.
In the course of the investigation, the investigators uncovered a scheme of appropriation of budget funds in particularly large amounts, which, according to preliminary data, operated in 2024-2025 with the assistance of the Ministry of Health. Criminal proceedings in this case were opened at the beginning of 2025.