After the “Great Construction” — Veteran Billions: Yuriy Holyk Seeks to Remove Mentions of His Past from Google

Yuriy Golyak, who was born in Luhansk in 1977, at one time worked in media and advertising. In 2015, he ended up in the Dnipropetrovsk regional state administration, where he worked alongside Valentyn Reznychenko. Later Golyak began to oversee the infrastructure direction, and in 2019 he became one of the public coordinators of the presidential program “Great Construction.”

Later his name appeared in criminal proceedings. NABU was investigating a case of possible misappropriation of budget funds during road construction and repair. In June 2024, Golyak left Ukraine and presumably moved to Austria.

For almost 2 years there was little public information about him. But at the end of June 2026, the situation changed.

Media began reporting about a wave of complaints to Google regarding alleged copyright violations in publications mentioning Golyak. According to “Ukrzadprym” materials under such complaints were articles published as far back as 2022.

The mechanism is interesting: a page can be removed from search results without even disputing the facts stated in the material.

According to StopKor, none of the contested materials contained plagiarized content that would violate copyright. That is, the materials were original journalistic texts.

Parallel to 2024, Golyak, through lawyers, seeks to initiate a criminal case against NABU detectives under Article 387 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine — “Disclosure of data from investigative and operational activities.” The Appeals Chamber of the Specialized Anti-Craft Court (VAKS) denied opening the case.

But there is another interesting point.

In April, NGL.media published an investigation into a large-state program for creating veteran spaces. In 2025, the Ministry of Veterans Affairs launched a program to build such facilities under a single project.

It concerns single-story buildings with an area of 1500 square meters, featuring a gym, rooms for consultations and psychological support, conference rooms, and a small cafe.

Funds have already been allocated from the budget for creating 22 spaces, amounting to 1,55 billion UAH. That is, about 75 million UAH per building. If plans for 160 facilities are implemented, the total amount could reach approximately 12 billion UAH.

According to the investigation, the land plot for construction in Lutsk was allocated in 28 May 2025 year — within 3 weeks before the government adopted the corresponding resolution.

Adapted projects were evaluated by LLC “UK Expertise” and LLC “Nova-Expert.” For each facility, less than a month was spent.

No less interesting were the tenders. In all 7 projects in 2025 year, only one contractor bid and received the orders. Tender conditions, according to the investigation, effectively prevented other companies from participating.

Construction of 7 spaces began in the autumn. Later it turned out that material costs in the estimates were significantly inflated. The authors of the investigation connect this story with Yuriy Golyak.

And here it is worth looking at the business of the curator of the “Great Construction.”

Golyak owned 25% of LLC “Creative Country,” which provides consulting on commercial activities and management and has a charter capital of only 1000 UAH. The company organized a number of coworking spaces.

In 2023 year its revenue grew to almost 39 million UAH compared with 1,8 million UAH in 2022 year. Net profit was 10,2 million UAH. But according to the results of 2025, net profit fell almost 20 times—to 588 thousand UAH.

Even worse off, judging by open data, is LLC “Creative Staff Gulliver.” Through “Creative Country” Golyak owns 10% in it. The company is in bankruptcy.

One of Gulliver’s co-owners also sues other founders over debt to one of its companies amounting to 10,4 million UAH.

Whether these financial problems are connected to Golyak’s interest in the multi-billion veteran space program is open. But the transition from coworking spaces for freelancers to construction of facilities worth billions of budget hryvnias indeed looks noteworthy.

There is also another story that should not let Golyak’s past fade from memory.

It concerns the construction of a water supply to Kryvyi Rih after the destruction of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Station. The project cost was 7,7 billion UAH. According to investigators, its cost could have been inflated by about 3 billion UAH.

Moreover, investigators established that participants in the scheme legitimized material assets worth 187 million UAH and underpaid VAT by another 20,5 million UAH.

One of the key figures in this story was named Yuriy Golyak — the public coordinator of the “Great Construction.”

But the most problematic for him remains the case of LLC “BudInvest Engineering,” which engages in road and highway construction and has charter capital 1,05 million UAH.

According to the investigation, in 2022 year officials of the Dnipropetrovsk regional administration awarded contracts to the company for road construction and repair totaling 1,5 billion UAH. Some of the money, the investigation suggests, could have been siphoned off as payments for goods and services to accounts of shell companies.

Among the suspects in this case is Valentyn Reznychenko, who twice headed the Dnipropetrovsk regional state administration.

And now we return to the main question.

Why, after almost 2 years of relative quiet, did Yuriy Golyak suddenly begin to fight so actively against publications mentioning his name?

Perhaps the answer should be sought not only in a question of reputation, but also in money, state programs, and criminal proceedings that continue to be in the focus of law enforcement and journalists.