Scandal over PlayCity tenders: link between ex-state secretary Bidenko and Rudenko's business

Gambling monitoring tender: questions over the cost

In September 2025, an IT company co-owned by Andriy Rudenko until 2018 won a tender from the state agency PlayCity. The subject of the procurement was an online gambling monitoring system, valued at 25.9 million UAH. Journalists from the "Spilno" project expressed doubts about the legitimacy of rejecting a competitor's bid, which was 6 million UAH lower (19.9 million UAH). The authors of the "Spilno" material suggest that the decision was influenced by the informal network of a former state official.

Bidenko's career and "free" work

Artem Bidenko held the positions of Deputy Minister and subsequently State Secretary of the Ministry of Information Policy from 2015 to 2020. After his dismissal, he moved to the position of non-staff consultant at the State Enterprise "Multimedia Platform of Foreign Information of Ukraine" (MPIU), receiving no salary and holding no official post. It is this status that raises questions: can a person without an official position and responsibility influence the decisions of a state enterprise?

Business empire around the ex-official

Andriy Rudenko is a close friend and business partner of Bidenko. He heads the neuromarketing research direction at the NGO "Institute of Information Security" (co-founded by Bidenko) and owns the advertising agency "Prana". According to NGL.media calculations, in just under three years, companies and entrepreneurs linked to Bidenko received over 70.5 million UAH from the Ministry of Culture, of which almost 51 million UAH came from MPIU.

The largest share of funds was received by LLC "Light Communication", founded by Vitaliy Shapovalenko — Bidenko's father-in-law and former Deputy Minister of Housing and Communal Services in Mykola Azarov's government. According to YouControl data, the company signed contracts with Ministry of Culture enterprises for 47.7 million UAH. Since August 2021, according to NGL.media, orders were provided to it exclusively by MPIU.

Suspicious contracts and the The Gaze project

A separate story is the development of the The Gaze platform. An IT contractor previously affiliated with Rudenko signed a contract with MPIU for 12.56 million UAH on 29 December 2022. The amount was reduced by 2.5 million UAH, a report on the completion of work was received on the same day, and over 10 million UAH was paid on 30 December. The company's head explained to NGL.media that the work began before the tender "at their own risk and peril".

Expenses for promoting The Gaze in the United Kingdom also came under scrutiny. Entrepreneur Roman Peresunko received 2.2 million UAH from MPIU for this project and rented an EEG helmet for neuromarketing from Bidenko. Neither of them could confirm to journalists that research of the British audience actually took place.

In its year of existence, The Gaze signed contracts for 90.8 million UAH, while its site was visited by only approximately 16,600 unique users per month, according to NGL.media data.

Bidenko's reaction and current status

In an interview with "Detektor Media", Artem Bidenko called the headline of the NGL.media investigation "clickbait". He noted that the actual amount of funds received by affiliated structures is 54.5 million UAH, not 70.5 million. Bidenko claims that he sees no conflict of interest, as all contracts were awarded after his dismissal, and he was a "persona non grata" at the Ministry of Culture.

Currently, Bidenko has distanced himself from the The Gaze project. Since 2025, he has headed the Ukrainian Association of Publishers and Distributors and emphasises the need for state intervention to overcome the crisis in the book industry.