From March 9 to 15, 2025, 67,000 procurement notices for a total amount of UAH 15.76 billion were published in the Prozorro system. The state enterprise “Multimedia Platform for Foreign Broadcasting of Ukraine” was the largest expenditure during this period, which concluded four agreements with TV channels to create content for the telethon “United News #UArazom” in 2025 for a total of 738 million hryvnias. About this reported publication “Our Money”.
The most expensive were the services of “We – Ukraine” LLC, related to the environment of the President’s Office, which were valued at 196,000 hryvnias per hour of content. Taking into account the costs of another “Freedom” telethon, the total amount of payments to content producers for both marathons amounted to 2.01 billion hryvnias. This information is confirmed by data from the Prozorro and 007 systems.
The cost of new contracts with each TV channel was approximately the same — from 184 to 185 million hryvnias, but the cost of an hour of content varied depending on the volume of the ordered product. The services of “We – Ukraine” LLC remain the most expensive, costing 196,000 hryvnias per hour. The company appeared in the telethon at the end of 2022, after Rinat Akhmetov’s Ukraine News Group transferred its license to the state, and its journalists moved to the We Are Ukraine channel. Ihor Petrenko owns 79.5% of the company’s authorized capital.
According to People’s Deputy Yaroslav Zheleznyak, the TV channel “We – Ukraine” uses the seized equipment of “Channel 4” Oleksiy Kovalev and, possibly, part of the equipment of the “Nash” channel Yevhen Murayev. Zheleznyak also noted that FOPs ordered services from this TV channel to cover the activities of oil and gas companies, authorities and conferences organized by Energoatom. At the same time, Ihor Petrenko was Nataliya Larioncheva’s academic supervisor at the graduate school of Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University. According to sources, Larioncheva worked for a long time in the directorate of information policy of the President’s Office, in particular in the telethon, and continues to work there.
In second place in terms of the cost of services was “Studio 1+1 TV and Radio Company” LLC, which belongs to the group of the under-sanctioned Ihor Kolomoiskyi. The cost of the company’s services is UAH 157,000 per hour of content.
The third position was taken by Victor Pinchuk’s LLC “SLM News” with a price of 138 thousand hryvnias per hour. Previously, in January-April 2024, these services cost 158 thousand hryvnias, and from May to December 2024 – 119 thousand hryvnias per hour.
Closes the rating of PrJSC Telekanal Inter, owned by sanctioned Dmytro Firtash, with a price of 115,000 hryvnias per hour. Previously, these services cost 133,000 hryvnias per hour in January-February 2024, and 97,000 hryvnias per hour in March-December.
Separately, it is worth mentioning the state TV channel Rada, which does not produce content independently, but orders it from Kinokit LLC. During the invasion period, this company received 341 million hryvnias. In January 2025, Rada ordered the production of content for the marathon “The only news #UArazom” for this year in the amount of 102 million hryvnias, with a price of 102 thousand hryvnias per hour – similar to last year.
“Kinokit” LLC is owned by Yulia Drozdova, who graduated from the Ukrainian Film School, founded by the wife of the former deputy head of the Office of the President Kyryl Tymoshenko. According to Bigus.Info’s investigation, Drozdova was a legal adviser to the firm of Timur Mindich, a former business partner of Volodymyr Zelenskyi. The company is managed by television producer and director Maksym Onanko.
