Born in Mukacheve Raion in the Zakarpattia Oblast, Heletey worked briefly as an electrical mechanic at a local truck company before being drafted into the Soviet Armed Forces in 1985; he served in the Soviet Border Troops. In March 1988 Heletey started a career in the police and in 1994 graduated from the Ukrainian Academy of Internal Affairs in Kiev. After that he worked until 2006 for the police department, specializing in the fight against organized crime for the city of Kiev. In October 2006 Heletey as a Colonel was employed by the Presidential Administration, heading its service on issues of law-enforcement agencies. On December 4, 2006 he was promoted to the special rank of Major General of police. On May 24, 2007 Heletey became a chief of the State Security Administration that specializes in security of government officials. On June 20, 2007 Heletey was granted a military rank of Major General and on August 21 of the same year he was promoted to Lieutenant General. On August 20, 2008 Heletey received another promotion: to the rank of Colonel General. In July 2009 he was relieved from his position as UDO chief. On March 2, 2014 the acting president Of UkraineOleksandr Turchynov appointed Heletey as the UDO chief once again, replacing Serhiy Kulyk. On July 2, 2014 the newly elected President of UkrainePetro Poroshenko proposed Heletey's candidacy for the post of the Minister of Defense, and next day the Verkhovna Rada approved the proposal with the support of 260 of the 450 parliamentarians. During his maiden speech Heletey hinted that Ukraine would regain control of Crimea, lost during the 2014 Crimean Crisis: "I am convinced that Ukraine will win, and trust me, a victory parade will certainly be held in a Ukrainian Sevastopol." At the end of August/beginning of September 2014 he wrote on his Facebook page that the rebels had been defeated and Russia had been forced to begin a full-scale invasion of the region with regular forces, saying: "A great war has arrived at our doorstep - the likes of which Europe has not seen since World War Two. Unfortunately, the losses in such a war will be measured not in the hundreds but thousands and tens of thousands." On 1 September 2014 Newsweek reported that Heletei claimed on his Facebook page that Russia threatened Ukraine with nuclear attack if it won't stop fighting rebels. On 12 October 2014 Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko accepted Heletey's resignation, saying that it was time for a change in the country's defense leadership. After he was replaced by National Guard of Ukraine commander Stepan Poltorak, Heletey was appointed head of the State Guard of Ukraine. On 20 October 2014, the Temporary Investigative Commission of Verkhovna Rada published a report on events related to the "Ilovaisk's cauldron" where it acknowledged that the tragedy at Ilovaisk took place due to inadequate actions of the Defence Minister Heletey and the Chief of General Staff Muzhenko.
