Oleksiy Sukhachev is one of the most influential figures in the Ukrainian power bloc. And at the same time, one of the most secretive. Since 2021, he has headed the State Bureau of Investigation, an agency that should become an analogue of European anti-corruption and law enforcement institutions. According to the plan, the SBI should investigate the crimes of top officials, protect state interests, and act as an independent control mechanism in the power system. But the facts of recent years have built a completely different image - a leader under whom the Bureau has turned into a means of covering up the most dangerous political and corruption stories.
One of the most striking episodes was the decision to destroy materials in high-profile cases that had historical significance. These included the “Kharkiv agreements,” embezzlement in the army during the Yanukovych era, a number of Maidan cases, materials regarding Viktor Medvedchuk, and covert investigative actions regarding ex-president Petro Poroshenko. Formally, such documents were destroyed allegedly due to the threat of the capture of Khmelnytskyi, where the archive was stored. However, at the time of the decision, the city was not in real danger. This makes the explanation of protection from the occupiers extremely dubious and only strengthens the assumption that it was a matter of deliberate “erasing” evidence that could influence the fate of influential political figures.
The personal financial and property profile of the head of the State Bureau of Investigation raises no less questions. Formally, Sukhachev does not have his own home. But his family actually lives completely differently from what it looks like in the declarations. An apartment in Kyiv with an area of about 50 square meters in a new comfort-class building is registered for his son - an acquisition that is difficult to explain in terms of official income. Another apartment - 107 square meters in a modern residential complex with underground parking - is registered for another person, and in the documents is indicated as being in the use of the family. His wife owns a land plot in the region, which only with the beginning of a full-scale war has significantly increased in value. Against this background, the formal address in the form of a room in a dormitory looks more like an attempt to create the illusion of a modest life than a reflection of reality.
The picture is similar with transport. The family uses a Lexus RX-350, a Toyota Camry and a Mercedes GL-350 — cars that are registered partly to third parties. The declaration records large amounts of cash — tens of thousands of dollars and over a million hryvnias, as well as significant balances in bank accounts. Even more strange are the three gifts made by Sukhachev himself at the height of the war — hundreds of thousands of hryvnias each. For the head of a law enforcement agency, who formally lives very modestly, such financial “gestures” are more reminiscent of movements of funds that require additional explanation than charity or family transactions.
Against this background, the SBI's tendency to adopt a selective approach to citizens' appeals and corruption allegations is becoming increasingly apparent. According to sources in the system, a significant portion of complaints are not simply not considered — they are deliberately ignored or formalized with formal responses that do not involve any real action. This practice effectively paralyzes the Bureau's main function and creates the impression that the SBI has become a mechanism for filtering "inconvenient" topics, rather than a control body.
All this together — destroyed high-profile cases, opaque property, questions about sources of income, and selective law enforcement policy — creates a dangerous image of a leader under whose leadership the SBI is moving not towards independence, but towards political and financial dependence. And while society expects transparency, the body designed to ensure it increasingly resembles a structure where the most important decisions are made not in the interests of the state, but in the interests of those who have access to its leadership.
