Zviahilsky, Yukhym [Звягільський, Юхим; Zvjahil's'kyj, Juxym], b 20 February 1933 in Stalino (now Donetsk), d 6 November 2021 in Kyiv. Politician, mine manager, and a leader of the Donetsk clan in Ukrainian politics. A graduate in mining engineering from the Donetsk Industrial Institute in 1956, he later obtained a candidate’s degree from the Moscow Mining Institute (1972). Employed in the mining sector in Donetsk from 1957 to 1970, he worked his way up to mine director. In 1970, he became director of the Zasiadko mine, the largest in the USSR, and remained associated with it continuously thereafter. Under his management the Zasiadko mine was notorious for chronic accidents, including one in 2007 when 106 miners perished in the deadliest mine disaster in Ukrainian history. He demanded production of coal regardless of cost.

In March 1990, at the close of the Soviet era, Zviahilsky was elected as a Communist Party of Ukraine deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR in the first semi-free parliamentary elections in Soviet Ukraine. He retained his seat in the Supreme Council of Ukraine without interruption through all succeeding general elections until 2019. His party affiliation transitioned to Party of Regions, of which he was a co-founder, and ultimately to its successor, the Opposition Bloc.

Zviahilsky gained a reputation as a strong manager, father figure, and political ‘boss’ of his region. In 1992–3 he served as mayor of Donetsk. From there, in June 1993, he was appointed first vice-premier of Ukraine by President Leonid Kravchuk. In September 1993, upon the resignation of the prime minister, Leonid Kuchma, Zviahilsky was promoted to acting prime minister. His appointment was seen as a conciliatory gesture by Kravchuk to the Donbas mining interests as well as recognition of the rising power of the Donetsk clan in Ukrainian politics associated with mining and steel works at the expense of the military-industrial Dnipropetrovsk clan headed by Kuchma. Like other ‘red directors’ Zviahilsky was an opponent of economic reform, whereas Kuchma had a more pragmatic approach to the question. Under Kravchuk’s direction, Zviahilsky dispensed large sums to the agricultural sector intended to garner votes in the presidential election of the following year, which caused an outbreak of hyperinflation in the Ukrainian economy.

Under a cloud of suspicion for corruption, Zviahilsky was relieved as acting prime minister in July 1994, following the election of Leonid Kuchma as president of Ukraine, and replaced by Vitalii Masol. He then disappeared from public view, surfacing in Israel from which extradition proved difficult. He spent two years there and obtained Israeli citizenship. In the meantime, in November 1994, the Supreme Council of Ukraine voted to lift his immunity from arrest allowing him to face charges of having embezzled $25 million US through improper oil and gas deals. The case against him was closed and never made it into a court of law. Following a petition by him protesting his innocence, his fellow parliamentarians voted on 12 February 1997 to restore his immunity from arrest and prosecution. He thereupon returned to Ukraine in March 1997 and resumed his parliamentary career. He was head of the council of leaseholders of a large coal mining enterprise, and (from May 1997) head of the Donetsk oblast association of enterprise directors. In 1998 Zviahilsky was made an honorary citizen of Donetsk. A street in the city bears his name.

In 2014, following the Euromaidan Revolution and the outbreak of the war in the Donbas, Zviahilsky managed to win 72.7 percent of the vote—1,454 actual votes—in the unoccupied portion of his constituency, beating ten other candidates. He opposed the separatist leaders in the Donetsk People’s Republic expecting all of the Donetsk oblast to be returned to Ukraine as sanctions against the Russian Federation began to be imposed. Zviahilsky declined to contest the 2019 elections, not having attended any sittings of the previous parliament. Highlights of his voting record in the Supreme Council of Ukraine included being the sole member of the Party of Regions caucus to support recognizing the Ukrainian Insurgent Army as the Second World War combatants, supporting the draconian 16 January laws in 2014, and not voting to rescind them, and opposing the law on decommunization.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Vyshnevs'kyi, D. ‘Iukhym Zviahils'kyi: siryi kardynal Donbasu, hospodar shakhty, vulytsi ta mista,’ Korotko pro (8 November 2021)

Bohdan Harasymiw

[This article was written in 2025.]