The First Deputy Chairman of the Kherson Regional Council, a deputy from the “Servant of the People” party, Yuriy Sobolevskyi, has declared for the first time a Volkswagen Touareg car that is regularly used by his wife, Olena Sobolevska. According to the declaration for 2025, the vehicle belongs to the official’s father-in-law, Andriy Borysenko, but has been in the free use of the official’s wife since January 1, 2025.
This is reported by Kyiv24
Investigation and Official’s Reaction
Journalists noted that Sobolevskyi had not previously listed this car in his declarations, although since 2023, photos and videos of the deputy’s wife driving the Volkswagen Touareg have appeared on social media. Additionally, while using this car, Olena Sobolevska received a fine for violating traffic rules in Kyiv in May 2024.
After the publication of the investigation, Sobolevskyi explained that he had not declared the car earlier because his wife used it irregularly, and he did not consider it significant. After submitting the new declaration, the official stated that he decided to declare the car since his wife now drives it more often.
“It’s better to declare it now at this stage that she uses it than to count the days when she did or did not use it,” Sobolevskyi added.
Discrepancies in Income and Previous Declarations
The Volkswagen Touareg was not mentioned in the 2024 declaration. According to the investigation, the official income of Sobolevskyi’s father-in-law could not cover the expenses for purchasing the car, which cost about two million hryvnias (over 70 thousand dollars at the time of purchase). From 1998 to the end of 2020, Andriy Borysenko officially earned 618 thousand hryvnias and received a pension of about six thousand hryvnias per month, which did not allow him to accumulate the amount necessary for such a purchase. In the recent declaration, Sobolevskyi did not specify the value of the car.
The investigation also found that in 2018, when Olena Sobolevska was a civil servant, she declared only 230 thousand hryvnias in joint savings. By 2019, after being appointed to public service, Yuriy Sobolevskyi declared significantly larger amounts: 50 thousand dollars, 40 thousand euros, and nearly one million hryvnias, without explaining the origin of these funds. That same year, he acquired property rights to an apartment and made other significant expenditures totaling over three million hryvnias of unknown origin.
Yuriy Sobolevskyi explained that before entering public service, he worked as a lawyer in Kyiv, and the income reflected in the declaration is not excessive for a specialist of his level. He also emphasized that his wife declared joint savings based on her husband’s statements and did not violate any legislation.
In 2019, Sobolevskyi was appointed as the representative of presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelensky in the Kherson region, Crimea, and Sevastopol, and also headed the election headquarters of the “Servant of the People” party in the region. After Zelensky’s victory, he became an advisor to the head of the Kirovohrad Regional State Administration and the head of the State Geocadastre department in Kirovohrad region. Prior to this, he worked as a lawyer.