Former adviser to the head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Military Administration and former curator of the presidential “Great Construction” program, Yuriy Holyk, has once again come under public scrutiny. According to media reports, he may be linked to a large-scale state initiative to establish veterans’ spaces and has also reportedly sought to have publications about himself removed from search engine results.
This is reported by Comments.ua.
From curator of the “Great Construction” to a political emigrant under investigation
Yuriy Holyk, born in Luhansk in 1977, tried his hand at media and advertising before starting work in 2015 at the Dnipropetrovsk Regional State Administration alongside Valentyn Reznichenko. Soon he was already responsible for the most complex and “profitable” area — maintenance and development of infrastructure. In 2019, he was put in charge of the large-scale presidential program “Great Construction” — repair and construction of roads and infrastructure facilities — totaling more than 100 billion “pre-war” hryvnias.
Numerous scandals and accusations of inflated prices for the work soon erupted around the curator’s figure, which “Comments” wrote about in detail. Eventually, during the investigation, NABU established that the girlfriend of Dnipropetrovsk Governor Valentyn Reznichenko, fitness trainer Yana, turned out to be the owner of the construction company “Budinvest Engineering.” Part of the budget funds were, according to the investigation, stolen by inflating prices. Yuriy Holyk was even a suspect in this case, but ultimately, in June 2024, the curator of the “Great Construction” left Ukraine and departed, likely for Austria. For almost 2 years after that, Yuriy Holyk “kept a low profile,” but now the situation has changed.
Google under attack because of Yuriy Holyk
Starting from the end of June 2026, some Ukrainian news sites began reporting a wave of complaints to Google about alleged copyright infringements on a number of publications. Most of the disputed materials are related to journalistic investigations mentioning Yuriy Holyk. As one of these sites, “UkrRudProm,” claims, all articles since 2022 have come under attack. This mechanism allows pages to be quickly removed from search results without challenging the facts contained in them on their merits. According to another site, “StopKor,” none of the materials subject to complaints contain borrowed content that violates anyone’s rights — all texts are original editorial materials. In the publication’s view, this may indicate an attempt at mass removal of unwanted content under the pretext of allegedly “protecting copyright” — a tool increasingly used lately to pressure independent media.
At the same time, since 2024, Yuriy Holyk, through his lawyers, has been trying to initiate criminal proceedings against NABU detectives under Article 387 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine “Disclosure of data from operational-search measures.” However, the Appeals Chamber of the Higher Anti-Corruption Court has repeatedly refused this. But why, two years after his “escape” from Ukraine, has Yuriy Holyk suddenly become concerned about his image? The likely answer to this question is one of the investigations by the publication “Our Money. Lviv,” which came out in the spring of this year.
12 billion hryvnias for veterans
In April, NGL Media published an investigation concerning a large-scale state program for creating spaces for veterans. In 2025, the Ministry of Veterans Affairs launched a program to build new spaces according to a single design — a one-story building with a total area of about 1,500 sq. m, consisting of two blocks: a gym and a separate premises with rooms for consultations, psychological support, conference halls, and a small cafe. For the creation of 22 such spaces, 1 billion 546 million hryvnias have already been allocated from the budget, or about 75 million hryvnias per building, which, with plans for 160 such facilities, could cost around 12 billion hryvnias.
Moreover, journalists note that the lobbying of this initiative was so powerful that the plot for construction in Lutsk was allocated on May 28, 2025 — three weeks before the government adopted the corresponding resolution. The expert review of the adapted projects was carried out by two organizations: LLC “UK Expertise” and LLC “Nova-Expert,” spending less than a month on each facility. They also rushed with tenders — in all seven projects in 2025, only one contractor participated in the bidding and received the order, and the tender conditions effectively prevented others from participating. For example, in Kryvyi Rih, they required confirmation of annual income at the level of the expected contract value (over 130 million hryvnias) — and a personal inspection of the facility signed by the customer. In Uzhhorod, in addition to the inspection, optional quality certificates were added. At the same time, the companies that ultimately received the contracts were either newly created or had incomparably little experience.
The contractor in Kremenchuk had experience performing work worth 2 million hryvnias but received a contract for 132 million hryvnias. Construction of seven veteran spaces began in the fall of 2025. It then became clear that the cost of materials in the estimates was significantly inflated. In Kremenchuk — about 2 million hryvnias, in Kryvyi Rih — about 2.6 million hryvnias, in Uzhhorod — over 7 million. Some items in the estimates were deliberately formulated vaguely, without specific characteristics, making it impossible to compare them with market prices. At the same time, it is known that the development of the documentation was commissioned by the charitable foundation “Songs Born in the ATO” from a private entrepreneur from Zakarpattia, Yuriy Erdeli.
However, the founder of the foundation, Volodymyr Yurchenko, could not explain why a charitable organization was ordering construction documentation for a state program. The director of the foundation, Yuriy Shulyka, referred to calls from some people in the ministry, but also did not provide details. As NGL Media emphasized, the decision to turn specifically to the charitable foundation “Songs Born in the ATO” was prompted by the figure of its founder, Volodymyr Yurchenko. During Valentyn Reznichenko’s tenure, he was his deputy. At the same time, the curator of this program at the Ministry of Veterans Affairs is Deputy Minister Viktor Baydachnyi, who, according to his official biography on the ministry’s website, worked from 2018 to 2022 at the Dnipropetrovsk Regional State Administration.
His place of work was the Department for Veterans Policy, which at that time was headed by Nataliya Shulyka, whose husband Yuriy Shulyka is the director of the charitable foundation “Songs Born in the ATO.” The latter, by the way, is also connected with Yuriy Holyk, who at one time called the festivals “Songs Born in the ATO” of the namesake foundation “ours.” Holyk also confirmed his connection with the festival to NGL Media journalists. It is worth noting that the public procurement system Prozorro contains hundreds of tenders and auctions for the construction and equipping of veteran spaces. For example, the cost of developing project documentation for creating such a space can range from 1 to 1.5 million hryvnias, and capital repairs of premises allocated for it cost the same amount or even more. Ultimately, there is also their equipment, for which money is also allocated from state and local budgets that finance the program at 40%.
The criminal case of the patron and the bankruptcy of Ukrainian business — what Yuriy Holyk lives on
It is worth noting that the ex-curator of the “Great Construction,” who is abroad, clearly needs money, because, judging by open data, his business in Ukraine is collapsing. Thus, Holyk owned a 25% stake in LLC “Creative Country” (type of activity — consultations on commercial activities and management, authorized capital — 1,000 hryvnias), which organized a number of coworking spaces. Against the backdrop of electricity problems after Russian strikes, in 2023 the business showed miracles — almost 39 million hryvnias in revenue after 1.8 million hryvnias in 2022, of which 10.2 million hryvnias was net profit. However, based on the results of 2025, the company did not show profitability, and net profit fell 20 times — to 588 thousand hryvnias.
However, the situation is likely even worse, as LLC “Creative Staff Gulliver,” in which through “Creative Country” Yuriy Holyk owns 10%, is in a state of bankruptcy. One of the co-owners of “Gulliver” is even suing other founders over a debt to one of his companies of 10.4 million hryvnias. This financial trouble is likely related to Holyk’s interest in creating veteran spaces worth billions of hryvnias. The transition from coworking for freelancers to creating spaces for veterans worth billions in budget funds seems entirely logical. All this points to serious financial problems for the ex-curator of the “Great Construction.” It is hard to believe that he once literally handled billions.
Thus, just one project — the construction of a water pipeline in Kryvyi Rih, initiated after the destruction of the Kakhovka HPP, worth 7.7 billion hryvnias — could have been inflated by 3 billion. In addition, the investigation established that the scheme participants legalized inventory worth 187 million hryvnias and understated VAT payments by another 20.5 million hryvnias. Yuriy Holyk, known as the public coordinator of the “Great Construction,” was named one of the key figures. He was previously mentioned in the case of leaks of pre-trial investigation data from NABU.
But the real problem for Yuriy Holyk is the case of LLC “Budinvest Engineering” (type of activity — construction of roads and highways, authorized capital — 1 million 50 thousand hryvnias). According to the investigation, in 2022, officials of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional State Administration awarded the company contracts for the construction and repair of highways worth 1.5 billion hryvnias. Part of these funds was subsequently withdrawn under the guise of ordering goods and services, most likely to the accounts of fictitious companies. Twice former head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional State Administration Valentyn Reznichenko is directly a suspect in this case.
As stated in the case materials, in almost 2 years “Budinvest” made payments of 3.75 million hryvnias to LLC “Sevent Consulting Group” when its director was Oleksandr Reznichenko, the son of the Dnipropetrovsk governor. At the same time, Valentyn Reznichenko is the owner of the company, meaning there was an obvious conflict of interest. Since 2024, Yuriy Holyk has also been a figure in this case, in addition to the case of “leaks” from anti-corruption bodies, which forced him to leave Ukraine.
It is worth noting that recently, after a long hiatus, shadows of former “celestials” are increasingly appearing in the Ukrainian information space. For example, Viktor Medvedchuk, who is allegedly being helped by Oleksandr Spektor.
