The owner of a massage parlor became a key supplier of electricity to utilities in the Poltava region
Former journalist of the municipal TV channel “Kremenchuk News”, owner of a massage parlor Iryna Seryokhova is a co-owner of a company that has become a key energy supplier to municipal enterprises in the Poltava region. This is reported in a journalistic investigation.
The company was registered in 2022 by 24-year-old Kyiv resident Viktoriya Lyudmyrska. Six months after its establishment, the company received its first major contract from Lubnyvodokanal for 18.2 million hryvnias.
Two days before signing the agreement with Lubnyvodokanal, changes occurred in the company’s structure – instead of Lyudmyrska, who moved to the position of director, Iryna Seryohova, who owns a massage parlor in Kremenchuk, became the sole owner.
A few years ago, Seryohova worked as a journalist on the municipal TV channel Kremenchuk News, which mainly covers the activities of the city government and deputies. After being fired in June 2022, she tried to create her own media project, but later registered an individual entrepreneur and focused on the beauty industry.
The documents that Star Energy Trade submits for tenders contain an order to hire Seryogov with a salary of 16 thousand hryvnias and full-time employment. At the same time, she continues to actively advertise massage services on social networks.
In December 2023, Star Energy Trade LLC had a new CEO, Oleg Popenko. Within six months, Oleg Popenko became a 50:50 co-owner of the company with Iryna Seryohovoy.
55-year-old Oleg Popenko has extensive experience in the municipal sector. In 2014, he headed the municipal enterprise “Kremenchuk-Invest”, in 2016–2019 he was the financial director of the municipal enterprise for housing management in Kyiv. Then he headed the housing and communal services committee in the Public Council under the Kyiv City State Administration and worked as an advisor to the deputy head of the Kyiv City State Administration. In 2020, he founded the public organization “Union of Consumers of Municipal Services” and since then has positioned himself on social networks as an expert on housing and communal services and energy.
If during 2023 “Star Energy Trade” concluded contracts for 21 million hryvnias, then with the arrival of Popenko, the volumes increased 80 times.
Among the customers of “Star Energy Trade” are only municipal institutions and institutions of several regions: OKVP “Dnipro-Kirovograd”, “Teplokomunenergo” in Alexandria, “Poltavavodokanal”, “Poltavateploenergo” and others.
On At the beginning of 2026, Star Energy Trade signed contracts worth almost 1.7 billion hryvnias.
The publication learned that in the GetContact application, which determines how people record certain numbers in their phones, Iryna Seryogov is signed as “Korfa-Ira’s assistant” and “Iryna Korfa’s press service”.
50-year-old Yevhen Korf is a deputy of the Poltava Regional Council from Kremenchuk. In 2020, he ran for the regional council from the “Opposition Platform – For Life”. After the ban of this party, he joined the “For Poltava Region” group. He heads the regional council’s standing commission on ecology and sustainable use of nature.
His name is not among the founders or directors of Star Energy Trade. Instead, he owns the company “NVP “Energo-Plus”, and in June 2024, the lawyer of this company, Tetyana Nenasheva, ordered an extract from the state register of legal entities on behalf of “Star Energy Trade”, which is required for participation in tenders. A month later, this extract appeared in the tender offer of “Star Energy Trade”, which the company submitted to the tender of “Poltavavodokanal”.
At the same time as the creation of “Star Energy Trade”, Korf founded the “Charity Fund “Trust and Help” together with Victoria Popenko, the wife of Oleg Popenko, who soon became the general director and then a co-owner of the energy company. The wife of the head of the Poltava Regional Council, Oleksandr Bilenkoy, received about 150 thousand hryvnias in 2024 from the Non-Profitable Enterprise “Conversion Equipment” – a company co-owned by Yevgeny Korf.
However, Yevgeny Korf is not among the official owners or managers of “Star Energy Trade”, but as a deputy he actively promotes the company’s activities. In September last year, he personally voted for an appeal to the president and the government with a request to allocate a state subsidy to “Poltavavodokanal”. This appeal directly indicated that the debt to “Star Energy Trade” reached 33.6 million hryvnias.
