SSU Uncovers Bribery Scheme at Sumy University

The Security Service suspects the director of a department of a Sumy higher education institution of organizing a corruption scheme to extort bribes from graduate students for defending their dissertations.

This was reported by the Department of the Security Service of Ukraine in Sumy region.

In May 2025, the Security Service blocked a corruption scheme and detained an official of a Sumy university while receiving an illegal benefit. At that time, it was established that officials of the educational institution demanded $6,000 from graduate students for the successful defense of their dissertations, and if they refused to pay bribes, they created artificial conditions that made it impossible to defend their dissertations.

During the pre-trial investigation, SSU investigators documented that the director of one of the university’s departments was involved in the organization and implementation of an illegal scheme that had been operating for several years. Based on the obtained materials, the investigators informed the man of suspicion under Part 2 of Article 28, Part 5 of Article 27, Part 2 of Article 368 (assistance in accepting an offer, promise, or obtaining a significant amount of illegal benefit by an official in a prior conspiracy by a group of persons). The issue of choosing a preventive measure is being decided. The official faces up to 6 years in prison.

As a reminder, on May 17, the academic council of Sumy State University decided to temporarily remove the deputy director of the Institute of Law of Sumy State University from her position, the woman was detained by SSU officers on May 16. This was reported on the university's Facebook page. In response to the incident, the university initiated an internal audit of the system of training scientific and pedagogical personnel.

We reported that the account of the High Anti-Corruption Court received UAH 9.08 million in bail for the former director of the cybersecurity department of the Security Service of Ukraine, Ilya Vityuk.

Previously, the HACC left the former head of the Rubizhna RMA in custody.