The Murder of Taras Poznyakov

The rideshare journey

On April 4, 2016, Taras Poznyakov left Lviv in his Audi A6 for Kyiv. Two passengers had arranged to travel with him through the BlaBlaCar rideshare service. He never reached his destination, and communication with him stopped before Kyiv.

Police soon located Poznyakov's vehicle in a garage in the Kyiv region. The disappearance developed into a homicide investigation, with Dmytro Holub and Russian citizen Luan Kingisepp identified as suspects. Both men had been passengers on the trip, according to later court and law-enforcement reporting.

The search for suspects

Holub was arrested in August 2016 in Khmelnytskyi region. Kingisepp remained wanted internationally. He died in March 2019 in an explosion in a Kyiv apartment, before he could be brought to trial in Poznyakov's case.

Because Kingisepp was never adjudicated for the murder, this archive does not treat suspicion, wanted status or investigative attribution as a criminal conviction. The solved classification rests on the completed prosecution of Holub.

Trial and conviction

On May 28, 2019, the Kyiv-Sviatoshyn District Court convicted Dmytro Holub. Reporting based on the later Supreme Court proceedings states that he was found guilty not only of intentional murder but also of robbery, unlawful taking of a vehicle, weapons offenses and document offenses.

The first-instance court imposed life imprisonment with confiscation of property. Holub challenged the judgment. On June 7, 2021, the Kyiv Court of Appeal left the life sentence in force.

The Supreme Court ruling

On December 7, 2021, the Criminal Cassation Court within Ukraine's Supreme Court considered the cassation appeals and left the judgments unchanged. The Supreme Court therefore preserved the life sentence imposed on Holub.

The final ruling is the legal basis for classifying the case as solved and adjudicated. It does not establish criminal liability for every person investigators once suspected, nor does it answer every question about motive.

Recovery of Taras Poznyakov

Two days after the Supreme Court ruling was publicly reported, Ukraine's Security Service said it had located Poznyakov's body near the Zhytomyr–Kyiv highway. Ukrainian reporting said examination results had confirmed the identification.

The discovery gave the family and investigation a physical answer that had been missing for more than five years. It occurred after the courts had already found that the evidence proved Holub's responsibility for the killing.

The possible contract-killing theory

When the Security Service announced the recovery, its spokesperson said investigators had received information suggesting that the murder might have been commissioned and that this information was being checked. That was an investigative statement, not a final judicial finding.

This page therefore does not present a contract motive, an ordering party or a broader conspiracy as proved. The final conviction supports Holub's responsibility for the murder and associated offenses; any higher-level commissioning theory remains distinct unless established by reliable judicial evidence.

Timeline

Current status

The case is classified Solved / Adjudicated. Dmytro Holub was convicted of Taras Poznyakov's murder and related crimes, and the life sentence survived both appellate and Supreme Court review. Luan Kingisepp died before trial and is not presented as convicted. Investigative suggestions of a possible commissioning party remain separate from the adjudicated facts.

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