Yuri Boyko

Childhood

Yuri Boyko was born on October 9, 1958 in the city of Gorlovka, Donetsk region. Unfortunately, there is practically no information about Yuriy's childhood in open sources. From the few interviews and articles about Boyko we can understand that his parents were not special "bigwigs", they worked at enterprises in Gorlovka. It is also known that Yuriy was engaged in music and played the violin as a child. After graduating from Gorlovka city school, he left to study in Moscow.

In 1976-1981 he studied at the Mendeleev Moscow Institute of Chemical Technology, qualifying as a "chemical technologist", specializing in explosives.

In 1996-2001 he studied at the Rubizhan branch of the East Ukrainian State University, specializing in engineering-economics, and received a bachelor's degree in engineering-economics.

Career

• 1981-1999 - worked his way up from shop foreman to general director of the chemical plant "Zarya" in the city of Rubizhne.
• 1999-2001. - Director of "Lisichansknefteorgsintez" (one of the largest enterprises engaged in oil refining).
• 2001-2002. - Director of "Ukrtatnafta" in Kremenchug.
• 2001-2005. - Director General of the State Corporation "Ukrvzvzryvprom".
• 2002-2005. - Chairman of Naftogaz of Ukraine.
• 2003-March 2005. - First Deputy Minister of Fuel and Energy of Ukraine.
• 2006-December 2007. - Minister of Fuel and Energy of Ukraine (in the government of Viktor Yanukovych).
• 2010-December 2010. - Minister of Fuel and Energy of Ukraine (in the government of Mykola Azarov).
• 2010-December 2012. - Minister of Energy and Coal Industry of Ukraine.
• 2012-2014. - Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine for Fuel and Energy Complex.

Political Activity

• In 2001, he joined Serhiy Tihipko's Labor Ukraine party.
• On April 23, 2005, he was elected chairman of the Republican Party of Ukraine.
• In 2006, he ran for the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of the 5th convocation from the Bloc of political parties "Opposition Bloc" and "Not So!". Bloc did not get enough votes from the electorate. Nevertheless, Mr. Boyko was still a winner: on August 4, 2006, he was appointed Minister of Fuel and Energy of Ukraine in the government of Viktor Yanukovych.
• 2007-2010. - People's Deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of the 6th convocation, elected from the Party of Regions under No. 49 in the list.
• Since 2014 - People's Deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of the 8th convocation from the Opposition Bloc party, No. 1 in the list. Head of the faction and a member of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Committee on Veterans, participants of military operations, participants of the anti-terrorist operation and people with disabilities.
• On November 9, 2018, Boyko and the leader of the party "For Life" Vadim Rabinovich signed an agreement on the establishment of the "Opposition Platform - for Life".
• After that, on November 20, 2018, Yuri Boyko was expelled from the faction of the "Opposition Bloc" in the Verkhovna Rada.
• In 2019, he was elected as a people's Deputy of the 9th convocation from the party "Opposition Platform - For Life" No. 1 in the list. Co-chairman of the faction of the same name.
  

Personal life

Yuri met his wife Vera when he was a student - they were classmates. Vera Boyko is a master of sports in gymnastics. The couple married in their fifth year, when Vera was graduating from Moscow State University and Yuri was graduating from the Moscow Institute of Chemical Technology. They have been together for nearly 40 years.

The couple have six children - three sons and three daughters, with the oldest and youngest child 24 years apart.

Boyko's oldest son, Anatoly, graduated from KPI and works in the computer field.

Daughter Yaroslava graduated from the Institute of Foreign Languages and now works as director of L'Officiel Hommes magazine.

Daughter Ulyana is editor-in-chief of another magazine, Pink.

It should be noted that both magazines are products of the publishing house Babylon, which is co-owned by Yuriy Boyko's son-in-law and husband of his eldest daughter Yaroslava, Sergei Gorovoy.

Revenue

Yuriy Boyko owns a small apartment (37 square meters) in the town of Rubizhne, Luhansk region. There, together with his wife, father and children, the politician has an 80-meter apartment.

The politician owns several land plots: 20 hectares in Dubrava and 6 hectares in Gnedina. Boyko has built a house in Kiev that has been dubbed "a branch of a Russian folk tale."

The politician's wife has much more property registered to her:

• a 220-square-meter apartment in the Russian Federation,
• a 220-square-meter luxury apartment in Kiev,
• a house near Kiev,
• five plots of land.

Mr. Boyko owns a Mercedes-Benz GL500, which was bought in 2007 for almost 700,000 hryvnias, as well as a 1978 VAZ-2101.

Yuri Anatolievich keeps 14,000 dollars in banks. His wife keeps almost 11,000,000 hryvnia, 920,000 dollars and 3.3 million roubles.

Interesting facts

He opposed the legalization of gambling in Ukraine.

In his opinion, in a country as economically weakened by the crisis as Ukraine is now, it was impossible to legalize gambling without solving other vital issues.

1. Parliamentary colleagues call Boyko a "factory director" - they say he is a weak politician, but a good organizer.
2. In everyday life, Boyko is quite conservative and has Soviet views on life. He likes Warsteiner light beer, milk sausages with mashed potatoes. He wears Kiton luxury suits, which Vladimir Putin also likes to wear.
3. In 2003, Yulia Tymoshenko, who was serving as prime minister, accused Boyko of corrupt activities and sought his dismissal. The ministry said it intended to open a criminal case against the former head of Naftogaz, but it never came to that.
4. Boyko and Firtash ran scams with regional gas companies. Thus, Minister Yuriy Boyko drove them into bankruptcy, and Firtash bought them out for next to nothing. The fraud was revealed only in 2008. According to the most conservative estimates, the losses from the activities of Boyko and Firtash amounted to about 2 billion dollars. But no one was able to charge Boyko with anything, because at that time he became a people's deputy and received immunity.
5. Uniting with the deputy director of "Gas of Ukraine" Oksana Mas, Boyko created an artificial gas demand in 7 regions of the country. Then fictitious auctions were organized to sell additional gas at a special, undervalued price.
   The Prosecutor General's Office has repeatedly tried to get Yuriy Boyko's parliamentary immunity lifted, but the case has never been pursued.
6. While in power, Yuriy Boyko helped appoint his son-in-law Serhiy Gorovoy as head of Kyivgas in 2010. After Boyko's resignation, his daughter's husband remained in office, maintaining his father-in-law's influence on the gas market.
7. The operation that made Boyko famous was the so-called "Boyko towers." In 2011, during Boyko's tenure as minister of fuel and energy, the state corporation Chernomorneftegaz bought a complex of well drilling equipment for 400 million dollars. Fictitious companies from Britain and Latvia, which received the right to supply the equipment, deliberately increased the real price of the drilling rigs several times. As it turned out later, Ukraine overpaid 150 million dollars.
8. Yuriy Boyko has close ties with disgraced Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash. Among other things, they are each other's nephews. It is believed that Yuriy Boyko's testimony in a court case about Firtash's crimes saved the oligarch from extradition to the United States and imprisonment.
9. In November 2016, Yuriy Boyko got into a fight with Radical Party leader Oleh Lyashko at a conciliatory council of factions in parliament.
10. Boyko ran for president twice and lost twice. In 2014, only 0.19% of the electorate voted for him. In 2019, he significantly built muscle through media PR - he was supported by 11.67% of voters.
11. As a child, Yuriy Boyko played the violin. And now he is an ardent sports fan, especially the politician likes hockey. Other preferences include water and alpine skiing, windsurfing and soccer.
    

Legacy

In August 2004, "for the full settlement of Ukraine's gas debt to the Russian Federation," Boyko was awarded the title Hero of Ukraine and the Order of "Derzhava."

Also for the full settlement of Ukraine's gas debt, he was awarded the Order of Turkmenistan.