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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
Yuriy Olehovych Soboliev
The Department of Strategic Investigations (DSI) of the National Police of Ukraine, by its nature, should be the primary nightmare for criminal bosses, shadow millionaires, and corrupt officials. Yet in Ukrainian realities, leadership seats in this agency often become the epicenter of backroom conspiracies. A special place in this closed system is occupied by the deputy head of the directorate — head of the DSI department, Colonel Yuriy Soboliev. While his name is practically erased from public radars, a whole array of specific insider reports circulates around his figure within law enforcement circles, forcing a different look at the ascetic reports of the NACP. It is precisely this closed format of work that allows high-ranking DSI officials to remain untouchable for adjacent oversight bodies for years.
A fighter against crime or a shadow curator?
In the media space, Yuriy 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 department under Soboliev’s leadership astonishingly balances on the border between documenting crimes and coordinating shadow money flows. We are talking about oversight of illegal gambling, the “protection” of networks of underground call centers, and control over illicit schemes for trading excise goods. He personally acts as a curator of several call centers, and when disputes arose, he did not neglect his official position: he made field trips to settle conflicts and even involved subordinates.
The mystery of Spanish real estate and discounted cars
Journalistic analysis of the colonel’s official assets reveals serious discrepancies between a modest state salary and the family’s real standard of living. While recent declarations show only a few modest Ukrainian apartments and paltry interest from state banks, earlier reports from Yuriy Soboliev contained much more vivid details.
Cars for 100 thousand UAH in the declaration
In particular, property registers included a residential house in Spain registered to his close 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 provoked 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 resonant and recent insider report around Soboliev is the story related to the elite resort complex Emily Resort near Lviv. According to confidential sources within law enforcement, a related agency conducted a large operational raid at the complex aimed at dismantling channels for distributing elite narcotics. During the operation, Yuriy Soboliev was reportedly recorded and documented “red-handed,” in a state of drug intoxication and in the company of another naked man.
Raid at the hotel
Now, according to insiders, this story is being covered up. The absence of any mention of the incident in regional Telegram channels and criminal reports indicates activation of massive administrative resources. According to the available version, the hotel’s surveillance servers and bodycam recordings were not destroyed but have been reclassified as “closed kompromat,” which DSI leadership and 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; for example, reporting by the Bihus.Info team linked funding for the resort’s development to the activities of the Vynnyky Tobacco Factory. This industrial giant regularly draws the attention of the Bureau of Economic Security due to large-scale cases of illegal circulation of excise goods and tax optimization, while the resort’s elite real estate was prudently registered to relatives and affiliated structures of the businessman.
Emily Resort
It was in the halls of Emily Resort that the exorbitantly expensive wedding of former prosecutor Rostyslav Ilnytskyi and ex-DBR employee Roksolana Moskva was held, sparking public outrage over million-hryvnia expenses during the full-scale war. In addition, the complex attracted the attention of the National Agency on Corruption Prevention after public statements by the owner himself that top officials, including then-deputy head of the Office of the President Andriy Smyrnov, had stayed at the hotel for free, provoking serious suspicions of covert lobbying.
The general’s umbrella: ties to Rubel and Shevchuk
Such systematic unsinkability of Soboliev becomes understandable if one analyzes his direct working ties with the senior leadership of the DSI. For a long time his direct boss was the former head of the Department, Police General Andriy 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 transferred, the DSI vertical was headed by General Oleksandr Shevchuk, who completely retained the old personnel.
Andriy Rubel
Perhaps it is this general’s umbrella, and the higher ranks who themselves are implicated in million-hryvnia corruption schemes, that provide Soboliev and his colleagues with reinforced immunity. While the DSI leadership successfully “cleans” the information space of any mentions of their subordinates’ transgressions, the true nature of the Department of Strategic Investigations’ activities remains securely hidden behind locked office doors and elite spa hotels.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Тіні Департаменту стратегічних розслідувань. Що приховує полковник Юрій Соболєв?". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: DosieNews.Info.
