Lubov Minko, the Head of Mylivska Village of Beryslav raion, received the second largest salary among 49 heads of military administrations (MAs) of Kherson oblast in 2025, after Yaroslav Shanko, the Head of Kherson City MA. Her average monthly income reached over 110 thousand UAH. Representatives of Kherson Oblast State Administration think it was justified.
After publication of our article about salaries of heads of local military administrations of Kherson oblast in 2025, the Center of Journalist Investigations received responses from heads of Mylivska and Zelenopidska Village MAs. Tetyana Yuschenko, the Head of Tavrychanska Village MA, remains «the most secretive head» among all heads of MAs as she refused to provide an answer for the second time.
Lubov Minko – among TOP-3
As we received new responses to our requests, we updated our list of Top-3 heads of local military administrations of Kherson oblast with largest salaries in 2025.
Yaroslav Shanko, the Head of Kherson City MA, holds the first place – his average monthly salary reached almost 185 thousand UAH. Since his appointment in June 2025, his remuneration for seven months amounted to almost 1,3 million UAH.
The second place should be given to Lubov Minko, the Head of Mylivska Village MA of Beryslav raion. Last year her average monthly salary reached almost 110,6 thousand UAH. Her yearly remuneration amounted to almost 1,33 million UAH.
Sergii Kukhta, the Head of Skadovsk City MA, occupies the third place, with around 109 thousand UAH as his average monthly salary.
As Lubov Minko’s response demonstrates, the lion’s share of her salary has been fromed by monthly bonus. For example, such a bonus reached almost 51 thousand UAH in September and 48,5 thousand UAH in December 2025.
Salary of Lubov Minko, Head of Mylivska Village MA. Source: answer to the information request of CJI
Other key components of the salary have been core salary, bonus for her rank and years in service. She also received personal bonus, expenses for field trips and vacation in other months. She was allocated yearly material assistance for health care (86,4 thousand UAH) and material assistance for improvement of her accommodation and living conditions (83,3 thousand UAH).
Lubov Minko, Head of Mylivska Village MA. Photo: Facebook Любов/Мінько
Dmytro Butrii, the First Deputy Head of Kherson Oblast State Administration, believes that Minko’s salary is justified. As he says, Kherson Oblast State Administration uses bonuses to stimulate those public officials who are disciplined and perform well.
«Scope of work, staff and functions of Mylivska Village MA cannot be compared with military administrations created on temporary occupied territories of Kherson region. Those administrations de facto do no manage their communities. Their scope of work is far less than that of Mylivska, Tyagynka or other communities on de-occupied part of region. Liberated communities have been under regular shelling; they work under extreme conditions. It is not honest and fair if Lubov Minko from Mylivska community will receive less salary than her colleagues from temporary occupied communities», as told us Dmytro Butrii.
What was the salary of the Head of Zelenopidska MA?
Yevhen Poznyak, the Head of Zelenopidska Village MA of Kakhovka raion, sent the response to our information request after the publication of our article. He and Lubov Minko explained their delay by technical problems with e-mail communication and persuaded that they did not intend to ignore our legitimate requests.
Salary of Yevhen Poznyak, Head of Zelenopidska Village MA. Source: answer to the information request of CJI
Information, given by Zelenopidska MA, include the amount of salary paid to Yevhen Poznyak in 2025. If we add 18% of income tax and 5% of military tax, then, his yearly salary reaches 1,03 million UAH (average monthly – around 86 thousand UAH).
Sergii Kukhta, Head of Skadovsk MA, Yevhen Poznyak, Head of Zelenopidska MA and Artur Davydov, Head of Verkhnyorogachytska MA (from left to right), 2025. Photo: Kherson Oblast State Administration
It is more than he received in 2024 – on average, 70 thousand UAH per month. Thus, his salary is an average indicator for his colleagues who received 70-90 thousand UAH per month in 2025.
What hides Tetyana Yuschenko?
Only Tetyana Yuschenko, the Head of Tavrychanska Village MA of Kakhovka raion, completely ignored our information request. In 2024, she provided large and unclear written refusal. This year she did not respond at all.
As Tetyana Yuschenko argued, public information about activity of Ukrainian governmental authorities and their employees under Russian aggression against Ukraine might be the threat to life and health of citizens living on occupied territories, «cause crimes and threaten national security». Thus, access to such information should be restricted, to her mind.
According to Oksana Maksymenuk, media lawyer and head of legal department of the Institute for Development of Regional Press, the Head of Tavrychanska Village MA «invented» the reason to restrict an access to the information about her salary. This information is the public information and it must be disclosed upon request.
Oksana Maksymenuk believes that Tetyana Yuschenko might withhold information about her salary if she, for some reasons, would reside on temporary occupied territory and manage military administration from there. Under such conditions, disclosure of information about her salary and paid taxes might become the threat to her life.
Tetyana Yuschenko, Head of Tavrychanska Village MA (center), October 2025. Photo: Facebook/Децентралізаційний марафон
Dmytro Butrii, the First Deputy Head of Kherson Oblast State Administration, mentioned Tetyana Yuschenko’s arguments when he spoke with journalist of CJI.
«Some [heads of local MAs of Kherson region] told me about their unwillingness to be public. They feel uneasy because their relatives are residing on temporary occupied territories. At the same time, there are just a few people who would like to work in governmental offices today. Many people state that they would like to work there but in fact – no», as said Dmytro Butrii.
CJI found out that there was little information about activity of Tavrychanska Village MA. On the other hand, the Decree about appointment of Tetyana Yuschenko was published on the official website of the President of Ukraine on December 14, 2022. Some publications on the official site of Tavrychanska community demonstrate that she is still holding her positions and addressing residents.
However, we think that it is positive sign that only one head from 49 heads of local MAs of Kherson region refused to answer our information requests. In 2022-2024, our requests about appointments and salaries of public officials have been largely ignored.
As soon as significant number of public officials of MAs, members of Kherson Oblast Council and other representatives of governmental authorities closed access to their pubic asset declarations during the war, information requests remain the only way to get information about activity of officials and the amount Ukrainian tax payers pay to support it.
This article is written within the project of IWPR «Strengthening Civic Control» under financial assistance of Norway.
