“The Killers Were 18, Police Reached the Client”. Who Is Deputy Sobolev, Whose Son Was Killed by Hitmen, and Who Could Have Ordered It. Key Points

All the details of the attack.

What happened?

On Sunday, December 1, at around 5:30 p.m., a black Range Rover used by Donetsk businessman and Kyiv Oblast Council deputy Vyacheslav Sobolev was shot at in central Kyiv. As a result of the shooting, Sobolev's three-year-old son Aleksandr was wounded and later died in an ambulance. The attack took place at the corner of Tarasovskaya and Lva Tolstogo streets, as Sobolev was pulling away from his elite Kyiv restaurant Mario, with his child and wife. The deputy was driving, while his wife and child were sitting in the back seat. 

Who shot at Sobolev?

Police reported the detention of two suspects, aged 18 and 19. According to Deputy Interior Minister Anton Gerashchenko, evidence was seized from them indicating that they were involved in the murder. Kyiv police chief Andriy Kryshchenko said that a carbine, which was the murder weapon, was seized from the detainees. The assailants fired from a building on Tarasovskaya Street, having rented a hostel room using a passport in the name of Oleg Strelnikov, born 1998 (according to Strana, the passport is listed as lost). The gunman opened fire when Sobolev slowed down at a traffic light. The bullet passed through the windshield but missed the driver, hitting the child in the back seat. The outlet published a photo of the attacker leaving the hostel one minute after the shot. Andriy Lavrega is suspected of the murder; he previously served in the Right Sector battalion. It is reported that he has a award from former president Poroshenko — the Order “For Courage”.

Police believe this was a contract killing, and that Vyacheslav Sobolev was the hitmen's target. According to National Police chief Kryshchenko, the deputy has been provided with protection. Sources at Ukrainska Pravda say that police have reached the client and he may be detained soon. According to Obozrevatel, the detainees are cooperating with the investigation.

Who is Vyacheslav Sobolev?

Vyacheslav Sobolev is a Donetsk businessman known in narrow circles. Sobolev was born in Yenakiieve in 1972, and is 47 years old. From 2005 to 2006 he was deputy mayor of Donetsk for executive authority affairs. From 2010 to 2011 he was deputy chairman of the Naftogaz National Joint Stock Company.

He is the founder of the Obzhora supermarket chain. According to Sobolev, he sold the Obzhora chain back in 2007. However, according to law enforcement, the sale was fictitious, and Sobolev continued to control the supermarket chain. In 2016, the SBU opened a criminal case under the article “financing of terrorism”. The case was opened due to the fact that Obzhora supermarkets operated in occupied territories and paid “taxes” to the treasury of the self-proclaimed republics. In December 2016, searches were carried out at the Mario restaurant. At that same time, Vyacheslav Sobolev left Ukraine. Throughout 2017, during the investigation, Sobolev remained abroad, as he himself claimed, for medical reasons. However, nothing is known about the further investigation of the case. 

In 2015, Vyacheslav Sobolev was elected a deputy of the Kyiv Oblast Council from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc party. In 2017, it was announced that they intended to recall Sobolev from his post as deputy. The reason was a toxic reputation and criminal prosecution. However, Sobolev was never recalled. 

In 2018, the NABU investigated a case of illicit enrichment by the deputy. However, the Constitutional Court soon abolished this article of the Criminal Code. 

The deputy was also accused of holding Russian citizenship. A copy of the deputy's Russian passport was widely circulated in the media, but there is no confirmation of this data.

Sobolev has been married several times. One of his former wives is Viktoria Sobolieva, a notary in Kyiv. Another marriage of the deputy was to Svetlana Shpigel, the former wife of Nikolai Baskov and daughter of former Federation Council member Boris Shpigel. The couple divorced in 2014.

After his divorce from Shpigel, Sobolev married Inna Vilchinskaya. Vyacheslav Sobolev has five children from different marriages. The last of them, son Aleksandr, was killed in the assassination attempt. His godmother was singer Iryna Bilyk.  

Who could have ordered the attack on the deputy?

Police are considering three theories: family and domestic problems, financial and business activities, and past professional activities.

According to Strana, Sobolev may have had business conflicts. In 2016, on his Facebook page, the deputy complained about attacks, whose orderers he named as former HCJ judges Artur Yemelyanov and Viktor Tatkov. Also, in various interviews, Sobolev stated that he had problems in relations with the father of his former wife, Boris Shpigel. The latter allegedly made Sobolev barred from entering Russia.

The businessman's business conflicts could have been linked to the Obzhora shopping center in Mariupol, whose raider seizure Sobolev blamed on the former judges. However, the other side of the conflict called Sobolev himself a raider: lawyer Masi Naiem, representing the company that owns the building, stated that the owner has not been able to access his property for several years because he is being physically obstructed.

Yemelyanov himself issued a statement denying his involvement in the attempt on the deputy's life and saying he is ready to provide explanations to law enforcement.