Former State Secretary Bidenko and his circle received over 70 million hryvnias from the state

25.9 million hryvnia tender for ex-official's company

In September 2025, an IT company co-owned by Artem Bidenko until 2018 won a tender by the PlayCity State Agency. The contract for creating an online gambling monitoring system was valued at 25.9 million hryvnias. It is worth noting that the rejected bid was 6 million hryvnias cheaper — 19.9 million hryvnias.

Artem Bidenko held the positions of Deputy Minister and State Secretary of the Ministry of Information Policy from 2015 to 2020. After his dismissal, as he himself stated in a blog on "UP", he became an external consultant for the State Enterprise "Multimedia Platform of Foreign Broadcasting of Ukraine" (MPIU) without a salary or a position in the staffing table.

Network of business partners

Bidenko's friend and business partner is Andrii Rudenko. Rudenko heads the neuromarketing research direction at the NGO "Institute of Information Security", co-founded by Bidenko. Together with Olena Vysokovska, he owns the advertising agency "Prana", from which Bidenko eventually withdrew.

In less than three years, entrepreneurs and companies linked to Bidenko by family or friendly ties received over 70.5 million hryvnias from the Ministry of Culture. Almost 51 million hryvnias of this amount came specifically from MPIU.

Contracts of the ex-state secretary's father-in-law

The largest share of funds was received by LLC "Light Communication". The founder of the company is Vitalii Shapovalenko, Artem Bidenko's father-in-law and former Deputy Minister of Housing and Communal Services in Mykola Azarov's government.

"Light Communication" concluded agreements with Ministry of Culture enterprises for a total amount of 47.7 million hryvnias. From August 2021, orders came exclusively from MPIU. As early as 2021, Dozorro analysts drew attention to a payment of 9.8 million hryvnias for a documentary project for Independence Day, the clips of which received an average of only about 100 views.

This did not prevent the company from receiving an order from MPIU in July 2023 for three series at once: "Homo amans", "Content of a Sensitive Character", and the fictional series "One and a Half Percent".

Controversial funding of The Gaze platform

The development of The Gaze platform was handled by an IT subcontractor previously affiliated with Andrii Rudenko. According to Prozorro data, on 29 December 2022, MPIU signed an agreement with him for 12.56 million hryvnias. A few hours later, the amount was reduced by 2.5 million hryvnias, a report on the completion of work was received the same day, and on 30 December, over 10 million hryvnias were paid. The company's head explained to NGL.media that the work began before the tender — "at their own risk and peril".

A separate story is the purchase of an EEG helmet for neuromarketing, a research field that Bidenko himself admitted to promoting. Entrepreneur Roman Peresunko, who received 2.2 million hryvnias from MPIU to promote The Gaze in the United Kingdom, rented the helmet directly from Bidenko. Neither Peresunko nor Bidenko could confirm to NGL.media journalists that the research of the British audience actually took place.

In one year, The Gaze platform concluded contracts for 90.8 million hryvnias, while its site was visited by approximately 16,600 unique users per month. Artem Bidenko distanced himself from the project. Since 2025, he has headed a publishing association and emphasises that the crisis in the book industry cannot be overcome without state intervention.