Ahead of the 2020 Kyiv City Council elections, candidate Yuliia Symunina from the Opposition Platform — For Life (OPZH) party had no prominent public, political, or volunteer background. Nevertheless, she secured a high second place on the party list, right behind veteran politician Oleksandr Popov. A recent journalistic investigation sheds light on her background, family real estate businesses, controversial land initiatives, and unanswered questions regarding her official asset declarations.
According to her official biography, Yuliia Symunina originates from the temporarily occupied city of Horlivka. In 2008, she graduated from Donetsk National University with a degree in Finance, later earning a Master’s degree in Law. However, her career path raises analytical questions: her official employment history began in 2012 at the firm «Servis Skhid Proekt,» which had a minimal charter capital and was based in Donetsk.
The founder of this firm is the deputy’s mother, Susanna Meshchanina, and the company specialized in real estate operations. Following the events of 2014, Symunina relocated to Kyiv, where she continued working in the property sector. In the capital, she founded «Tsentralne BTI» LLC, which subsequently participated in municipal tenders. Investigation data indicates that the management and financial ties of this company are closely linked to other entities, such as «Biznes Metry» LLC, where her father Mykola Meshchanin and former husband Dmytro Symunina are listed among the beneficiaries.
The latter is a former member of the Party of Regions, an ex-deputy of the Kuibyshevskyi District Council in Donetsk, and a former head of the legal department at the municipal enterprise «State Architectural and Construction Control.» In May 2025, the Pecherskyi District Court of Kyiv granted the couple a divorce, which experts suggest may have been used to optimize or conceal accumulated assets.
Beyond business operations, Symunina’s tenure in the Kyiv City Council has repeatedly sparked public debate. In 2021, she co-initiated a controversial draft decision that effectively halted the city council’s legal challenges against developers planning to destroy the unique ecosystem of southern Osokorky and the Nebrezh and Martyshiv lakes.
Civic activists and environmentalists stressed at the time that such initiatives directly contradict the interests of Kyiv residents. Instead of protecting the capital’s green zones, the deputy effectively supported the commercial interests of the construction lobby, drawing sharp criticism from locals.
Analytical attention is also drawn to Yuliia Symunina’s declared wealth. Back in 2017, when she ran for the position of head of the municipal enterprise «Kyiv City BTI,» she submitted her financial asset declaration for the first time.
Notably, despite reporting zero official income for 2016, the document featured an impressive list of material goods and assets:
An elite Porsche Panamera vehicle purchased that same year;
45,000 US dollars and 200,000 hryvnias in cash savings;
Several non-residential real estate properties acquired in 2016;
Luxury jewelry, including diamond rings.
This stark contrast between zero earnings and large-scale purchases raises numerous questions regarding funding sources. Further doubts are fueled by the absence of certain mandatory documents in the public domain, such as the candidate’s disclosure statement upon application and the final asset declaration upon leaving office. This leaves the transparency of politicians’ financial histories open to question and underscores the need for thorough anti-corruption scrutiny.