“Some people from the Ministry called and made an offer,” – that’s how the head of the charitable foundation “Songs Born in the ATO” explains how the organization, dealing with festivals, suddenly came to develop the project for a typical construction of the veterans’ space. This project laid the foundation for the multi-billion governmental programme which envisages the construction of over 160 such spaces throughout the country.
Probably, it can be explained by wide connections of the charitable foundation “Songs Born in the ATO”, which lead to Yurii Holyk, the informal supervisor of the “Large Construction”, and people from the circle of Valentyn Reznichenko, the former head of the Dnipropetrovsk RSA.
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Symbiosis of the community and the state
The first veterans’ spaces emerged in Ukraine long before any state programmes. Since 2014, local communities opened them in suitable premises using their own finances.
Only in August 2024, the state decided to take the matter into its own hands: the president signed the Order about supporting veterans, which specifically addressed the need to regulate the matter of veterans’ spaces. The following year, the Ministry of Veterans launched a programme of building new spaces using one unified project.
The project envisages one-storey buildings with a total area of about 1,500 sq.m. which consist of two blocks – a gym and separate premises with rooms for consultations, psychological support, conference rooms, and a small cafe.
The visualization of a typical veterans’ space; the construction of a total of over 160 such objects is planned within the state programme (a photo by the Ivano-Frankivsk SMA)
The state covers up to 60% of the construction costs, the rest is to be supplied by the local community. The money will be spent only on building new objects and only using the typical project of the Ministry, which means it cannot be used to repair or equip veterans’ spaces that are already in use.
Prior to the official launch of the government programme, the first deputy Minister for veterans’ affairs, Viktor Baidachnyi, visited the regions and held negotiations with local communities. And in July 2025, the government allocated UAH 446 mln, and the construction of veterans’ spaces started in the first seven communities – in Kryvyi Rih, Lutsk, Zhytomyr, Bucha, Uzhhorod, Kremenchuk, and Ivano-Frankivsk.
The plan was to put them into operation in record time – by December 1 of the last year. Obviously, none of these seven objects managed to do it on time. After all, they have not opened yet.
At the same time, in February 2026, the government approved the conditions for participation in the next stage of the programme of building veterans’ spaces – this time for UAH 1.1 bln for 15 communities.
The implementation of the programme
The documents, submitted by communities for participation in the governmental programme, demonstrate that cities started their preparation long before its official announcement. For instance, the land plot for construction in Lutsk was allocated on May 28, 2025 – three weeks before the government approved the corresponding resolution.
The adapted projects were analysed by two organizations, UK Expertise LLC and Nova-Expert LLC, spending less than a month for each object.
The tenders were also rushed. In all seven communities, only one contractor agreed to take part in the competition, so it was the one to receive the order, and the tender conditions practically made it impossible for others to participate. For instance, in Kryvyi Rih, they demanded confirmation for the annual income at the level of the expected contract estimate (over UAH 130 mln), and a personal inspection of the object with the client’s signature. In Uzhhorod, in addition to the inspection, they added non-obligatory quality certificates.
At the same time, the companies, which actually received the orders, were either newly established ones or the ones with disproportionally little experience. The contractor in Kremenchuk had experience for UAH 2 mln but received the order for UAH 132 mln. The documents, submitted for the tender, demonstrate that all 42 company employees were hired a few months before the tender with the salaries of UAH 8-9 thousand, while the average salary of a builder is UAH 40 thousand. The consortium, building a veterans’ space in Bucha, was registered a few months before the tender, its staff consisted of only six people.
The construction of seven veterans’ spaces started in summer-autumn of 2025. That’s when it turned out that the estimates contained considerably exaggerated prices for materials. In Kremenchuk, the difference was about UAH 2 mln, in Kryvyi Rih – about UAH 2.6 mln, in Uzhhorod – over UAH 7 mln. Some estimate entries are intentionally formulated in an unclear way, without specific characteristics, which makes comparison with market prices impossible.
The initial design of the programme envisaged less than five months from the distribution of finances to the emergence of ready objects. Yet, some communities went further. For instance, in Lutsk, the calendar plan, submitted along with the application, envisaged the start of construction on August 1 and its completion by November 30, i.e. only four months for the entire construction. As a result, the agreement with the contractor was signed only on October 15, and he had to complete the work by November 20. Yet, the example with Lutsk pales beside Kremenchuk where the agreement for construction was made on November 10 with the deadline of November 20 – ten days to build a complex building with the area of almost 1,500 sq.m.
This haste may be explained by the fact that the communities wanted to grasp the budget money by the end of the year, and then continue the building using the additional agreements. Vasyl Lishchuk, the head of the capital building department of the Lutsk city council, openly confirmed that the unrealistic deadlines were caused by the pressure from Kyiv, “It was said that the deadlines were very-very tight. But here we see the situation from one standpoint. The leadership of the country may generally somehow see it from another standpoint.”
The deadlines for all seven objects were moved several times. In the conversation with NGL.media, Vasyl Lishchuk explained that at present, putting the building in Lutsk into operation is delayed due to the coordination of decorations, since even the colours have to meet the unified standard. “There are delays caused by the Ministry itself, coordinating these processes. Several days ago, we received the local version, so now we start the internal decoration,” he explained.
According to Lishchuk’s estimates, the new veterans’ space in Lutsk will be opened not sooner than in June. However, he still doesn’t know who is going to maintain it. “We are responsible for the construction. The Ministry is deciding now who will use it later,” he said.
“Songs Born in the ATO”
According to the design of the governmental programme, a total of 161 veterans’ spaces are to be built in the entire country, and all of them are to be in the same architectural style. The project was approved by the Order of the Ministry for Veterans’ Affairs.
But the Ministry was not the one who had ordered it.
In the register of construction activity, the project documentation appeared on April 24 of the last year – 55 days prior to the governmental resolution. The elaboration of the documentation was ordered from Yurii Erdeli, a sole entrepreneur from the Transcarpathian region, by the charitable foundation “Songs Born in the ATO”.
Then, this project was transferred to the Ministry, which received all the property rights. The participation in the state programme is possible only on condition of building using only this project, without any alternatives – the communities confirmed it in their applications. The permissions for the use of the project were signed by the first deputy Minister, Viktor Baidachnyi.
The charitable foundation “Songs Born in the ATO” from Dnipro used to hold musical festivals, and in 2022, it reoriented towards helping servicemen, internally displaced people, and hospitals. The organization has nothing to do with designing or construction, at least officially.
Volodymyr Yurchenko, the founder of the foundation, couldn’t explain why the charitable organization ordered the construction documents for a state programme.
“Some people from the Ministry called and made an offer,” – there wasn’t much clarity to be added by Yurii Shulika, the head of the foundation, in the conversation with NGL.media. He confirmed that it was his organization that had ordered the project, which then was transferred to the Ministry. As to who called, why they contacted “Songs Born in the ATO” specifically, who took part in these negotiations from inside the foundation, how the designer was chosen – Yurii Shulika answered each of these questions in the same way: don’t know, cannot say.
In the conversation with NGL.media, Yurii Erdeli, the architect, confirmed that the charitable foundation contacted him, although he couldn’t remember its name. Erdeli says that he elaborated this project for a symbolic payment of one hryvnia, “because it is for veterans”. He didn’t have any contacts with the Ministry, and transferred his creation to the foundation, which then gave it to the Ministry without the architect’s involvement.
“I was asked to elaborate the project in very short time. We worked day and night,” Erdeli explains. It was necessary to build fast too so he envisaged building using prefabricated frame structures in the project. He believes half a year to be a realistic timeframe to build such a construction.
“Some people”
Yurii Shulika couldn’t explain why the foundation, headed by him, turned out to be in the centre of the state construction programme. But the connections of the organization give us a clue.
The charitable foundation “Songs Born in the ATO” was founded by Volodymyr Yurchenko, the former deputy of Valentyn Reznichenko, the head of the Dnipropetrovsk RSA. Reznichenko headed the region twice – from 2016 to 2019 and from 2020 to 2023. It was during his second term that the “Large Construction” programme evolved, a large-scale president’s project to repair roads, schools, and hospitals.
Open sources still have the picture of Reznichenko’s team in 2018. Yurii Holyk is to the right behind Reznichenko
The wife of the present head of the foundation is also associated with the regional administration. In 2017, Natalia Shulika coordinated the festival with the same name “Songs Born in the ATO” on behalf of the Dnipropetrovsk RSA – at that time, she worked in the Centre of assistance to the ATO participants at Reznichenko’s administration. She also headed the department for affairs of the ATO participants at the same administration.
In the forefront – Valentyn Reznichenko, the head of the RSA. The last ones on the left – Volodymyr Yurchenko and Viktor Baidachnyi. Now, the former is the founder of the charitable foundation, which ordered the project for the construction of the veterans’ space. The latter is the deputy Minister for Veterans’ Affairs. It was Viktor Baidachnyi who went to have negotiations with the communities even prior to the official start of the programme. It was he who was commissioned by the Minister to control the confirmation of the project and the distribution of the grants from the state budget among the first communities.
Viktor Baidachnyi was born in Dnipro. Prior to his appointment as the deputy Minister for Veterans’ Affairs in 2022, he worked at the department on matters of the veterans’ policy of the Dnipropetrovsk RSA during the term of Valentyn Reznichenko and under the leadership of Natalia Shulika. There is a document about the business trip of this department’s employees in 2019-2020, where Baidachnyi is mentioned as the leading inspector of the patriotic upbringing department. Both – Baidachnyi and Shulika – are co-founders of the NGO “Dnipropetrovsk regional union of the ATO fighters”.
The same group picture of Reznichenko’s team has one more person – Yurii Holyk. When Reznichenko was heading the RSA, Holyk was his advisor. They are old comrades – they have worked together since the 2000s. Reznichenko personally invited Holyk to each of his positions. “In a few recent years, I practically worked as his deputy,” said Holyk in the interview of 2021.
In September 2018, Valentyn Reznichenko and Yurii Holyk during the presentation of the results of inclusive education implementation, which took place with the participation of Maryna Poroshenko, the-then first lady (a photo by the Dnipropetrovsk RSA)
Yurii Holyk is often called the “ideologist” and “supervisor” of the Large Construction programme. He didn’t have an official position, but the journalists repeatedly saw him in the key meetings in the President’s office on the infrastructure matters.
But these are not the only things connecting Holyk with people around the programme of veterans’ space. He openly said that “Songs Born in the ATO” festival was “ours”. It was the festival, coordinated by Natalia Shulika on behalf of the Dnipropetrovsk RSA.
After the searches in 2023, according to the data from the media, Yurii Holyk left Ukraine via the “Shliakh” system as a volunteer driver of the charitable foundation “Songs Born in the ATO”.
The search was related to the NABU investigation, initiated after the publications in the Ukrainska Pravda and Schemes. Also the journalists found out that Budinvest Engineering company which belongs to a close friend of Valentyn Reznichenko received more than UAH 1.5 bln from the Dnipropetrovsk RSA – an abnormally large amount, compared to other regions.
In 2024, the NABU informed Valentyn Reznichenko and four more people about a suspicion on embezzlement of UAH 286 mln. In December 2025, the investigation was completed, the materials were transferred to the court, the amount of losses, proved by the investigators, increased to UAH 392 mln.
Yurii Holyk features in the same NABU case. In May 2024, it turned out that the investigation data were leaked to Holyk. Then, the SAP searched the NABU employee on suspicion of disclosure of the investigation materials. There were two searches of Yurii Holyk himself.
The name of Yurii Holyk appears not only in the programme of the veterans’ spaces. The National Military Memorial Cemetery is another large project of the Ministry for Veterans’ Affairs. The journalists of Bihus.Info found out that only one participant came to the tender for the first priority of construction for UAH 1.75 bln – the group company, created the day after the tender was announced, and Yurii Holyk was behind it. Serhii Derbin, the main architect of the memorial, cooperated with Holyk at the times of the Large Construction. Officially, the person, responsible for the construction of the Memorial Cemetery on behalf of the Ministry, was also Viktor Baidachnyi.
Viktor Baidachnyi refused to give any comments for this article.
Yurii Holyk confirmed his association with the foundation “Songs Born in the ATO” in the conversation with NGL.media. In his words, he had been involved in the organization of the festival with the same name since 2016, and after the full-scale invasion, he went abroad on behalf of this foundation several times, bringing the volunteers’ aid for the AFU. Holyk insists that now he lives in Kyiv. He is acquainted with Viktor Baidachnyi but hasn’t heard anything from him for “about seven-eight years”.
Yurii Holyk denied any involvement in the programme of building veterans’ spaces. “If I had been involved, in the fifth year of the full-scale war, such spaces would have been built in the entire country and would be the example to follow, they wouldn’t be at the stage of designing and discussing. And these would have been built without any state finances,” he claimed. He called the appearance of his name in terms of another large construction project of the Ministry for Veterans’ Affairs “someone’s notions and imagination”.
Author Aliona Malichenko, editor Oleh Onysko, translation Nelya Plakhota, cover Viktoria Demchuk
