Lapchenko Oksana Mykolaivna: PIC Issues Negative Integrity Conclusion Citing Conflict of Interest and Unexplained Asset Origins; Husband's Crimea Visits and Occupied-Territory Ties Noted as Additional Concerns

What Happened#

On 29 July 2026, the Public Integrity Council (PIC) adopted, by a vote of 11 of 18 members, a negative integrity conclusion concerning Lapchenko Oksana Mykolaivna, a judge of the Bakhmut City-District Court of Donetsk Oblast seconded to the Kyivo-Sviatoshynskyi District Court of Kyiv Oblast, who was a candidate for a position as a judge of a court of appeal. Among the Crimea-related facts recorded by the PIC, the decision states that the candidate’s husband, Lapchenko Pavlo Pavlovych, twice visited the temporarily occupied Crimea: during the period 12–21 August 2018 and during the period 16–26 August 2021. The PIC further recorded that the husband’s mother is the owner of a residential house located in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Chornomorskyi district, village Medvedeve, where, according to the candidate’s own explanation, the husband’s grandmother resided permanently and his parents also stayed at various times. The candidate explained in her written submissions of 27 July 2026 that both trips were motivated exclusively by family circumstances — visiting elderly and close relatives and providing them assistance — that both crossings were made through official checkpoints, and that no labour, business, political, or other activity on the occupied territory was involved. The PIC grouped the husband’s two visits to Crimea together with information concerning systematic crossings of the administrative boundary with temporarily occupied territories by the husband’s parents over the 2018–2022 period (the father approximately 20 times, the mother approximately 60 times), and with information from the Myrotvorets website alleging that relatives of the husband’s father used Russian Federation passports and documents issued by illegal occupying bodies of the so-called ‘DNR’. The PIC acknowledged that it cannot hold the candidate responsible for the independent decisions of her husband’s relatives, but concluded that the totality of this information raises reasonable doubts in an outside observer as to the existence and nature of the connections of the candidate’s husband’s close relatives with the aggressor state, and that the candidate must provide exhaustive explanations. The PIC treated this cluster of Crimea- and occupied-territory-related facts as a factor requiring ‘careful scrutiny’ in assessing the candidate’s compliance with integrity criteria, though the PIC explicitly stated that this cluster of facts did not itself constitute a ground for the negative conclusion and was presented as additional information requiring explanation.

Mariia Horban voted in favour of the conclusion, joining the ten other participating members who treated the husband’s two documented visits to occupied Crimea and the family’s residential house in village Medvedeve as integrity factors requiring exhaustive explanation in the context of connections with the aggressor state.

The Crimea Connection#

The candidate’s husband Lapchenko P.P. twice visited the temporarily occupied Crimea during the periods 12.08.2018–21.08.2018 and 16.08.2021–26.08.2021. […] My husband’s mother is the owner of a residential house located at: Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Chornomorskyi district, village Medvedeve […] The cited information regarding systematic trips by close relatives and the candidate’s husband himself to the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, as well as information about their use of passports of the russian federation and documents issued by the illegal occupying bodies […] raises reasonable doubts in an outside observer regarding the existence and nature of the connections of the candidate’s husband’s close relatives with the aggressor state.

By treating the husband’s trips to Crimea and the family’s property there as evidence of potential links to ’the aggressor state,’ the PIC implicitly equates presence in and ownership of property on constitutionally Ukrainian territory with connection to Russia, thereby operationally recognizing Russian jurisdiction over Crimea.