The Pension Fund of Ukraine is suing to recover nearly ₴300,000 in pension payments made to the deputy mayor of Poltava
The Pension Fund of Ukraine in Poltava Oblast has filed a lawsuit seeking to recover 297,000 hryvnias in overpaid pension benefits from Lesya Martalishvili, the deputy mayor of Poltava.
This is reported in court documents and open sources.
A specialized institute of the Ministry of Health has been brought into the case as a third party; as part of the review of disability decisions, it verifies and overturns unfounded medical and social conclusions made by officials amid the reform of the Medical and Social Examination Commission (MSEC) system.
Lesya Martalishvili, 52, has served as the Deputy Mayor of Poltava for Humanitarian Affairs since December 2023 under the quota of the “For the Future” party. Prior to this, her career was primarily in the field of education, specifically as head of the city’s education department and as a high school principal.
In 2024, she came under scrutiny due to her dissertation defense, in which signs of plagiarism were found, including textual similarities with other works.
The Pension Fund filed a lawsuit in late 2025 with the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Poltava. Initially, the case was left pending due to non-payment of the court fee; however, in March 2026, the court opened proceedings on the matter.
A key element of the lawsuit is the involvement of the Ministry of Health’s state research institute for medical and social expertise, which could lead to a review of the grounds for granting the disability-related pension and the possible recognition of the relevant decisions as unfounded.
According to public registries, the official’s declarations for certain years are missing, yet she has been receiving pension payments since at least 2018. The total declared amount of such payments for the available period exceeds 305,000 UAH.
As a reminder, earlier, the head of the Zhytomyr Regional Territorial Center for Recruitment and Social Support, Colonel Oleksiy Trofimenko, submitted a corrected annual declaration on April 15, 2026, in which he listed significant amounts of property, financial assets, and income.
As a reminder, the Security Service of Ukraine exposed and detained the head of the Zhytomyr Regional Territorial Center for Recruitment and Social Support.
