The High Anticorruption Court completed the preparatory investigation and scheduled the case of Yaroslav Dubnevych, the people’s deputy. He is accused of orchestrating the embezzlement of natural gas worth over UAH 2.1 bln and laundering the illegal profit.
This case has been active for almost ten years, yet Dubnevych was given an official notice of suspicion only on October 10, 2023, a few days after he had left the country. Since then, he is seen in court only on the screen of video conference, thoroughly hiding every feature that could reveal his location during the video call.
For over two years, the journalists of NGL.media have been trying to trace the runaway deputy, using only open sources – courts, business documents, real estate registers of different countries. This is an exciting story about his relatives who finally happened to reach the other side of the planet in search of a quiet haven for their money.
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Follow the money
First of all, we should note that we haven’t succeeded in finding out the exact location of Yaroslav Dubnevych. However, it is highly probable that one can accidentally run into him in the streets of Buenos Aires. At least, it seems like this is the place where his wife, his daughter and son-in-law, and even his son-in-law’s parents decided to settle.
A key person in this story is Roksolana Pyrtko, his favourite daughter, an heiress and owner of the main part of the business, created by Yaroslav Dubnevych. So we followed her steps which led us to South America.
Today, Roksolana and her husband Mykhailo are citizens of Argentina. It seems like Roksolana’s mother and Mykhailo’s parents may move there as well. We managed to find it all out using open sources.
Yet, no traces of Yaroslav Dubnevych can be found in these sources. And it can easily be explained – Ukraine placed him on the international wanted list, although NGL.media found out that nobody is actually looking for him. And yet Yaroslav Dubnevych is trying to avoid any documentary traces – large purchases, business agreements, flights registered in his own name, etc.
How are they looking for Yaroslav Dubnevych?
Yaroslav Dubnevych, a man on the wanted list, is still officially a people’s deputy (a Facebook photo)
Dubnevych finally left Ukraine in October 2023, but it is still unknown when and how he crossed the Ukrainian border, since his departure wasn’t registered at any border checkpoint. Ukrainian border guards even conducted an internal investigation, which yielded no results.
“Following the results of the internal investigation, it isn’t possible to determine the actual circumstances of the departure of a Ukrainian citizen, stated in your inquiry, from the territory of Ukraine and his further entering Romania,” says the official response of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine (SBGSU) to NGL.media’s inquiry.
After the disappearance from Ukraine, the only trace left by Dubnevych was on October 8, 2023, when he showed his passport while crossing the Romanian-Hungarian border. After that, he used Diia application from IP-addresses in the Netherlands, Romania, Poland, and Spain several times.
Officially, Yaroslav Dubnevych is on the international wanted list. However, the Interpol databases don’t contain any “red alert” which requires that the suspect should be arrested in any country. According to the data of the SAP, the Interpol posted a “red alert” for Dubnevych on May 3, 2024, but on August 23, it was deleted without any explanations.
One may only assume that it could be explained, for instance, by Dubnevych’s claim about political persecution or the fact that the documents were not executed properly.
A suitcase with cash
It seems like the relatives of Yaroslav Dubnevych started looking for a safe place to remove the capital from Ukraine long before his escape from Ukraine.
Roksolana Pyrtko met the Russian invasion in February 2022 outside Ukraine’s borders, so at the time when the borders were overloaded with women and children running away from the war, Dubnevych’s daughter moved in the opposite direction. On March 5, she came back via the Hungarian border, and three hours later, she brought out EUR 2.33 mln in cash.
Pyrtko placed the extracted cash into her account in the Slovakian Tatra Bank and explained that she received it due to her entrepreneurial activity. Yet the actual origin of this money raises doubts. In particular, the NABU detectives believe that it may be illegal or come from laundering the money, previously embezzled by her father.
After all, Roksolana didn’t manage to provide a convincing explanation as to where she had got the suitcase of cash from. In her customs declaration while crossing the border, she wrote that EUR 2.33 mln was received from the sale of real estate in Ukraine and designated for purchase of real estate in Slovakia. But during the interrogation in the Slovakian police, she explained that these were dividends from her business in Ukraine.
After all, she didn’t manage to use this money. In December 2022, the judge of the High Anticorruption Court placed her account in Tatra Bank under arrest.
However, this was not the last money in the family. In 2023, Roksolana and Mykhailo Pyrtko invested at least EUR 240 thousand in a Slovakian business and bought a house in Bratislava worth EUR 600 thousand. But they didn’t have a chance to live there either – in March 2024, the Slovakian court arrested this house as well.
Old friends and a Ukrainian consul
Mykhailo Kostiuk, the former director general of the Ukrzaliznytsia (a photo of the LRSA)
There is another interesting real estate object in Slovakia – a house in the suburbs of the village of Vyshnii Kazymyr in the east of the country. The Pyrtko specified this address while buying their own house in Bratislava, and Roksolana stated it as the place of her registration in Ukrainian business register several times.
This house is owned by Stanislav Obitskyi, a Slovak, who is an honorary consul of Ukraine in the neighbouring town of Vranov nad Topľou.
What is the connection between him and Dubnevych’s daughter? Obviously, Mykhailo Kostiuk is the former director general of the Ukrzaliznytsia, thanks to whom the relatives of Dubnevych laid the foundation for their riches. Kostiuk is the co-owner of the patent for track mounting, which the company of Dubnevych brothers earlier sold to the Ukrzaliznytsia for hundreds of millions of hryvnia.
Prior to 2018, Stanislav Obitskyi owned the Slovakian company MOGRA s.r.o., which then became the property of Mykhailo Kostiuk and his son. However, Obitskyi still continued to work as the head of the company that already belonged to the Kostiuks for many more years.
Stanislav Obitskyi didn’t answer the question of NGL.media about the nature of his relations with Mykhailo Kostiuk and Yaroslav Dubnevych’s daughter, just remarked that he had hosted her as a refugee for several months. We didn’t succeed in getting the comments from Mykhailo Kostiuk.
A failure in the Emirates
Slovakia wasn’t the only country where they tried to invest the family’s money. In November 2022, Roksolana Pyrtko paid EUR 1.2 mln for an apartment with three bedrooms in one of the skyscrapers in Dubai’s downtown (the UAE). She also registered a company, providing marketing services there.
However, she didn’t manage to settle on the Persian Gulf coast. Nothing is known about the success of her company there, and the apartment in Forte Tower 2 was rented long-term for 265 thousand dirhams (UAH 2.62 mln) a year.
Meanwhile, the family paid attention to another promising direction – South America.
The family goes to Argentina
In 2023, Roksolana and Mykhailo Pyrtko turned their attention to Argentina and chose Buenos Aires, which is believed to be the best city in this region in terms of living standards.
There could have been another reason for this choice. A child, born in Argentina, is automatically granted citizenship, and in 2024, Roksolana Pyrtko had a child there, and then submitted her own documents for citizenship. In the application for citizenship, Roksolana Pyrtko called herself a self-employed lawyer and marketing specialist with the income of about 2 mln peso a month.
To receive citizenship, one has to pledge allegiance to Argentina. This procedure is the final naturalization stage which takes place in the federal court. In October 2025, Roksolana Pyrtko addressed the court with the request to be allowed the allegiance pledge “as soon as possible within this year”. She stated the reason as the escalation of war activities in Ukraine and the need to organize the move of her mother, Natalia Dubnevych, to Argentina. The court granted her request, and on November 20, 2025, Roksolana Pyrtko made her pledge and became a full-fledged citizen of Argentina.
Roksolana’s husband, Mykhailo Pyrtko, made his pledge and received the citizenship of Argentina almost a year earlier – on November 21, 2024. In his documents for citizenship, he stated that he was a lawyer and consultant with the income of about 2.8 mln peso a month.
The Pyrtkos indicated an apartment in Puerto Madero, one of the most prestigious and expensive districts of Buenos Aires, as their place of residence. However, NGL.media failed to confirm that this apartment belongs to them – the local registers contain no entries about their purchasing any real estate.
The evening panorama of Puerto Madero, one of the most prestigious and expensive districts of Buenos Aires (a photo by Greg Olberding)
Nevertheless, Natalia Dubnevych, Roksolana’s mother and former wife of Yaroslav Dubnevych, might move to Buenos Aires as well. After his arrest in 2019, and then the arrest of his property, they got divorced in 2020, but it seems like 30 years of life together weren’t in vain – this January, Natalia Dubnevych succeeded in abolishing the arrest on her share of their co-owned property.
It seems like the parents of Dubnevych’s son-in-law – Svitlana and Serhii Pyrtko – also laid their eyes on Buenos Aires. According to the data of Nosis, people with the same names and dates of birth received tax identification numbers and got registered there as self-employed people. The address of the Pyrtko elders, stated in the Argentinian registers, is only 30 min away on foot from the apartment, where their son and daughter-in-law are registered.
As for Yaroslav Dubnevych, NGL.media’s inquiry to the National Department of Migration of Argentina was left without any response.
What is the role of Roksolana Pyrtko in the investigation against her father?
Despite multiple attempts to launch any business abroad, the main income of Roksolana Pyrtko was always made by the companies, which used to work or are still working in Ukraine. She claims to be a specialist in the real estate market analytics and a lawyer, and still states her place of work as Lviv trade centres “Spartak” and “Roksolana”.
The problem is that this business has been launched using the illegally obtained money – at least, this is the opinion of the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office. Roksolana Pyrtko didn’t respond to NGL.media’s request to give her comments to this article.
The version of the investigation is that some time ago, Yaroslav Dubnevych embezzled gas worth over UAH 2.1 bln and the money, obtained from its sale, was transferred to the accounts of the offshore companies KRT Investments LTD and ES Energy Invest LTD. For money laundering and legalization purposes, it was further transferred to the accounts of other offshores – Miro Trade GMBH (Marshall Islands) and Energypoint Holding LTD (Cyprus), the beneficiary of which was Yaroslav Dubnevych himself.
Then these offshores gave loans to other companies, related to the Dubnevych family, both offshore and those working in Ukraine. For instance, the Cypriot Suntown Projects LTD, which received loans from Miro Trade GMBH and Energypoint Holding LTD, in its turn gave loans to finance the construction of Spartak trade centre.
ES Energy Invest LTD and Suntown Projects LTD also gave loans to build the business in solar energy production, which was a passion of the Dubnevychs some time ago. These offshores were the ones to transfer the money to the accounts of Ukrainian companies, including NR Solar, Solar Green Tech, Tsetulia Solar, League Agro, Lvivbudmaks-Invest, affiliated with Roksolana Pyrtko.
The investigators found out that the Ukrainian companies, controlled by Yaroslav Dubnevych and his family, received loans and credits from Cypriot offshores for a total amount of over EUR 22 mln and USD 9 mln.
How are they trying to blank out their faces?
Recently, the Pyrtkos decided to improve their image. For this purpose, they could have employed the services of one of many companies, involved in cleansing the reputation in the Internet. As a result, in a few recent months, in the Ukrainian segment of the Internet, there appeared dozens of positive mentions of Roksolana – from thoughts about the role of solar energy generation or development of trade centres in the Middle East to the transfer of two heaters to the AFU and support for Ukrainian young people.
A number of websites also published the biography of Roksolana Pyrtko (1, 2, 3) without any mention of her father, but one can find out that she has been practising yoga for 11 years. Mykhailo Pyrtko is not far behind his wife, he is positioned (1, 2, 3) as an expert in energy sector and international investment legislation.
Such publications, worth about UAH 25-30 thousand per piece, are aimed at pushing the negative mentions off the first pages of the Internet search results, suggesting positive ones instead.
Another way of cleansing one’s reputation on the Internet is deleting negative mentions either for money or under the threat of legal persecution. The Pyrtkos are working in this direction as well – last June, Mykhailo Pyrtko sued NGL.media demanding that all the mentions about him and his wife should be deleted and any publications about them in the future should be prohibited. The case is still being reviewed by the court.
Authors Natalia Onysko and Oleksandra Hubytska, editor Oleh Onysko, translation Nelya Plakhota, cover Viktoria Demchuk
