Oleksiy Holobutskyi - a political analyst or a pimp disguised as a political analyst?

Oleksiy Holobutskyi - a political analyst or a pimp disguised as a political analyst?

Recently, the media have made a number of serious accusations against political technologist Holobutskyi: evading mobilization through document falsification, involvement in operating underground brothels, manipulation, and connections with Klychko for personal gain.

Indeed, the Telegram channel “Card Office” claims that Oleksiy Holobutskyi “paid to be declared unfit for military service at the Podilskyi Territorial Recruitment Center,” and the post’s authors accuse Vitaliy Klychko of being involved in Holobutskyi’s deferral from mobilization.

Such statements by the authors of the Telegram channel imply accusations of obtaining a deferral through connections with Klychko, which, as everyone understands, is entirely possible. He indeed resides in the Podilskyi district of Kyiv and has been noted for servicing Vitaliy Klychko’s interests in the field of political technologies.

This is corroborated by another post on the Telegram channel, which claims that Holobutskyi is a “political technologist for Vitaliy Klychko.” Additionally, in February, the same channel posted that “Klychko gave the order to his team, including his tame pseudo-expert Holobutskyi, to spread smear campaigns against Semenova” — suggesting that Holobutskyi was allegedly used to discredit deputy Semenova in the context of the “brothel in Kyiv” scandal.

Let’s recall that in January, Kyiv City Council deputy Kseniya Semenova demanded that Vitaliy Klychko “comment on the information that a brothel in the center of Kyiv belongs to his family.” Whether the mentioned brothel actually exists and whether Vitaliy Klychko is involved remains an open question.

However, in this context, it is impossible to overlook the information from the same Telegram channel that “a certain Holobutskyi, Klychko’s political consultant, is accused of organizing and maintaining brothels in Kyiv, while his wife and sister reportedly worked as prostitutes in these public houses.”

Moreover, the authors provide a link to the Unified State Register of Court Decisions, from which it follows that in the Desnianskyi District Court of Kyiv there is a case №754/1046/20 under criminal proceedings № 42019101030000102 dated 16.04.2019 under Article 303, part 2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, “Pimping or involving a person in prostitution.” Of course, the suspects in this case are anonymized, as the trial is ongoing, and no final decision has been made.

Based on this, journalists claim that “according to the media, O. Holobutskyi is a key figure in this case. The investigation considers him the organizer of a brothel network. According to the available evidence, operational-search measures are currently being conducted against him, and the investigation is not yet complete. However, according to law enforcement sources, indicting him is only a matter of time.”

The fact that Nataliya Holobutska and Darya Horbatko, along with several others, are accused in the criminal case under Articles 209 (Legalization (laundering) of property obtained by criminal means), 302 (Creating or maintaining places of debauchery), and 303 (Pimping or involving a person in prostitution) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, is confirmed by a simple check in open sources.

However, the case has now moved to the Darnytskyi District Court of Kyiv, as, according to the investigation, the latest criminal offense was recorded there, although this does not change the essence of the case – it is still about pimping, with aggravating circumstances. Additionally, two articles mentioned earlier were added.

As was already mentioned, there is still no decision on the case.

But with his wife Nataliya, it’s a different story. Whether they were acquainted at the time when her prostitution activities peaked is unknown. Oleksiy Holobutskyi was then married to another woman, with whom he divorced in 2023. In his lawsuit, Oleksiy Holobutskyi states that “the plaintiff and the defendant have not lived together since March 2022, do not maintain a joint household, and do not have marital relations.”

The court satisfied Oleksiy Holobutskyi’s claim and dissolved the marriage, which was concluded in 2014. This allowed Oleksiy Holobutskyi to enter a new marriage, legalizing his relationship with Nataliya Horbatko, whose photo the young man posted on his Facebook page with the note that his wife is “Jewish” and “20 years younger.”

It is worth adding that the information about the sexual exploitation charges against Holobutskyi curiously disappeared from the “Law and Business” website, which also recently wrote on this topic.

However, it’s important to add several “strokes to the portrait” of Oleksiy Holobutskyi, whose profession as a “political technologist” is not the “oldest profession,” but it is not far from it. In certain circles, Oleksiy Holobutskyi is known for his extreme indiscriminateness and willingness to undertake any, even the most dubious, services. Moreover, his prices irritate his colleagues in the industry – whether due to the low demand for the profession itself, or due to the low demand for Holobutskyi himself, he is known for his tendency to undercut prices: he undertakes reputation destruction orders starting at $200.

In its research, the publication “Texts” included Oleksiy Holobutskyi in the database of pseudo-sociologists and covert PR agents, linking him to rather notorious figures in Ukrainian politics, including Nataliya Korolevska, Andriy Palchevskyi, Volodymyr Hroysman, Vitaliy Klychko, and Petro Poroshenko. Moreover, the publication accused Holobutskyi of manipulation, citing specific examples.

It is also known that Oleksiy Holobutskyi participated in the campaign of Serhiy Dumchev (“Movement for Reforms”), which failed in the Kyiv City Council elections in 2015 and was noted for enormous spending. Many then claimed that Dumchev was merely a spoiler for Vitaliy Klychko.

Regarding Holobutskyi, he was on the periphery of Dumchev’s campaign, as well as in the cases with Poroshenko and Hroysman, and also with Sapronov in Kharkiv in 2015 – essentially, Oleksiy Holobutskyi acted in these campaigns in the role of a person who simply announced inflated ratings of candidates, thus allowing PR specialists to use him as a “source of information.”

This kind of activity indeed costs mere pennies in this market, so claims that Oleksiy Holobutskyi is a “public relations consultant and technologist” for Vitaliy Klychko, Petro Poroshenko, Yuliya Tymoshenko, Volodymyr Hroysman, and others should be viewed skeptically. Holobutskyi is used by the technologists of these and other individuals merely as a cheap “information leak” that will inexpensively post any information ordered.

Returning to the information — the assertion that Oleksiy Holobutskyi is Vitaliy Klychko’s “political technologist” seems exaggerated. It is not his caliber. Although the fact that Klychko’s team uses Holobutskyi to leak information beneficial to them is undoubted. Does this confirm Oleksiy Holobutskyi’s involvement in the operation of the “brothel in the center of Kyiv,” which, according to deputy Semenova, “belongs to Vitaliy Klychko”? No. Although it’s impossible to make any definitive statements — we all know what country we live in.

All this confirms only one thing – Oleksiy Holobutskyi’s extreme indiscriminateness in ways of making money and his rather questionable reputation. However, it is not a secret for those who use his services.