Shadows of the Department of Strategic Investigations. What Is Colonel Yurii Soboliev Hiding?

Yurii Olehovych Soboliev

The Department of Strategic Investigations (DSI) of the National Police of Ukraine, by its nature, should be the main nightmare for criminal bosses, shadow millionaires, and corrupt officials. However, in Ukrainian realities the leadership seats of this agency often become the epicenter of behind-the-scenes conspiracies. A special place in this closed system is occupied by the deputy head of the directorate — head of a DSI division, Colonel Yurii Soboliev. While his name is almost completely erased from public radars, a whole array of specific insider reports circulates around his figure in law enforcement corridors, forcing a different look at the ascetic reports of the NACP. It is precisely this closed working format that allows high-ranking DSI officials to remain untouchable for adjacent oversight bodies for years.

A crime fighter or a shadow overseer?

In the media space, Yurii Soboliev’s unit is periodically mentioned in the context of so-called “strategic monitoring” of the country’s most profitable illegal markets. According to publications, the operational activity of the division under Soboliev’s leadership astonishingly balances on the boundary between documenting crimes and coordinating shadow cash flows. We are talking about oversight of the illegal gambling business, “protection” of networks of underground call centers, and control over illegal schemes for the circulation of excise goods. He personally acts as the overseer of several call centers, and when disputed situations arose, he did not neglect his official position: he would carry out trips to settle disputes and even involve subordinates in them.

The mystery of Spanish real estate and discounted cars

Journalistic analysis of the colonel’s declared assets reveals serious discrepancies between a modest official salary and the actual standard of living of his family. While recent declarations show only a few modest Ukrainian apartments and meager interest from state banks, earlier reports by Yurii Soboliev contained far more striking details.

Cars for 100 thousand UAH in the declaration

In particular, property registers listed a residential house in Spain registered to his closest circle, which is a classic marker for top officials preparing a “safe haven” in case of personnel purges. In addition, the declaration of premium cars (a Hyundai Sonata and a Mazda CX-3) at an obviously understated value of 100 000 hryvnias caused much irony among automotive experts, since such figures look more like asset legalization than real market transactions.

Drug raid at Emily Resort and “missing videos”

The most high-profile and fresh insider report around Soboliev concerns the story linked to the elite vacation complex Emily Resort near Lviv. According to confidential law enforcement sources, a related agency conducted a large-scale operational raid at the complex aimed at dismantling channels for distributing elite narcotic substances. During the operation, Yurii Soboliev was recorded and documented “red-handed” in a state of drug intoxication and in the company of another naked man.

Raid at the hotel

Currently, according to insiders, this story is being buried. The absence of any mentions of this incident in regional Telegram channels and crime reports indicates the activation of a colossal administrative resource. According to the available version, the hotel’s surveillance servers and body-camera operational recordings were not destroyed but were reclassified as “closed kompromat,” which the DSI leadership and the owners of the tobacco business now use as a tool for closed interagency bargaining and blackmail to guarantee the colonel’s complete loyalty.

Emily Resort has repeatedly been the subject of journalistic investigations; in particular, materials by the Bihus.Info team linked the financing of the resort’s development to the activities of the Vynnyky Tobacco Factory. This industrial giant regularly falls into the sight of the State Bureau of Economic Security due to large-scale cases concerning the illegal circulation of excise goods and tax optimization, while the elite real estate of the resort was prudently registered to relatives and associated structures of the businessman.

Emily Resort

It was in the halls of Emily Resort that an outrageously expensive wedding was held for former prosecutor Rostyslav Ilnytskyi and former SKR employee Roksolana Moskva, which provoked public anger over million-hryvnia expenses during the full-scale war. In addition, the complex attracted the attention of the National Agency on Corruption Prevention after the owner publicly stated that top officials stayed at the hotel free of charge, including then-deputy head of the Office of the President Andrii Smyrnov, which sparked serious suspicions of hidden lobbying.

The general’s umbrella: ties to Rubel and Shevchuk

Such systemic unsinkability of Soboliev becomes understandable if one analyzes his direct working ties with the higher leadership of the DSI. For a long time his immediate boss was the former head of the Department, Police General Andrii Rubel, who himself became the subject of Bihus.Info investigations over million-hryvnia “gifts” from a retired father and a Porsche Cayenne registered to his mother-in-law. After Rubel was reassigned, the DSI vertical was headed by General Oleksandr Shevchuk, who fully retained the old staff.

Andrii Rubel

Perhaps it is this general’s umbrella, and higher officials who themselves are implicated in million-hryvnia corruption schemes, that provides Soboliev and his colleagues with ironclad immunity. While the DSI leadership successfully “cleans” the information space of any mentions of their subordinates’ missteps, the true nature of the Department of Strategic Investigations’ activities remains securely hidden behind the closed doors of offices and elite spa hotels.