Tenders Without Competition and Political Influence: How Vyacheslav Mishalov Promoted His Father’s "Master-Bud" in Dnipro Using Budget Funds

The company owned by Mishalov’s father, Maister-Bud, had existed for a long time but had never been a major player in the region. Everything changed after 2016 — that was when it became not just successful, but incredibly successful.

The company began winning one tender after another, as if competition no longer existed. The scale of growth was astonishing: nearly half a billion hryvnias in contracts in a single year.

Construction projects were launched all over the city: schools, kindergartens, hospitals, bridges, infrastructure sites. But the paradox was that along with the growth in volume came dozens of complaints about the quality of the work. Facilities were being approved despite obvious defects, deadlines were missed, budgets were inflated. People complained, journalists wrote about it, activists held protests — but Maister-Bud kept winning tenders.

The effect of “protection” was obvious. No company could have entered such large budgets so quickly and on such a scale without administrative backing. And everyone knew the name of the person who provided that backing — Vyacheslav Mishalov. His influence became a launching pad for his father’s construction empire, and this partnership became one of the pillars of the entire scheme.