Yurii Harbuz, the former head of the Luhansk Regional Military-Civilian Administration and former Member of Parliament, has secured a new position as an advisor to the head of LLC «DSK ‘Black Sea Shipping Company'» (BLASCO). The appointment of a politician with no background in the maritime industry has raised eyebrows in the media, given that his professional history primarily spans agricultural business, political scandals, and sensational tales of forest survival.
Harbuz currently advises company director Yurii Berezhnos, a fellow Luhansk native and former representative of the «Rus» party. Market experts note that the competence of the former governor is unlikely to serve the operational needs of a specialized maritime enterprise, especially when considering his contentious track record.
Yurii Harbuz began his career in 1990 as a shop class and history teacher. He obtained his higher education degree in organization management from the Luhansk National Agrarian University at age 35. Alongside his early employment, he actively expanded into agribusiness during the 1990s, establishing the «Harbuz Yu. H.» farming enterprise and the «Nadiya» association. At 28, he also founded a Cossack equestrian theater, later serving as its director.
However, his most talked-about personal narrative emerged during a 2018 media interview in which he claimed to have lived as a hermit. Harbuz stated that after completing his military service, he struggled to adapt to the turbulent 1990s and spent three years living in an off-grid underground forest dugout.
«A she-wolf lived nearby. The conflict ended when I killed her. Later, I found the wolf pups dying of starvation and raised them — it was my cross to bear for killing their mother,» Harbuz stated in 2018, an anecdote that earned him the nickname «Mowgli» across social networks.
Harbuz transitioned into public administration in the mid-2000s, serving as head of the Markivka District State Administration and later as chairman of the district council. Following a period registered at an employment center between 2011 and 2012, his political rise resumed. In 2014, he was appointed head of the Milove District State Administration and was subsequently elected to Parliament under the Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction. Despite holding the position of Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Preventing and Countering Corruption, monitoring groups such as Slovo i Dilo consistently logged him as a frequent absentee from legislative sessions.
The peak of his political career came in April 2016 with his appointment as head of the Luhansk Regional Military-Civilian Administration. By November 2018, however, he was dismissed by presidential decree. Media reports attributed his removal to a rift with MP Serhii Shakhov, his refusal to head Poroshenko’s regional campaign headquarters, and a series of regional corruption scandals.
Harbuz’s tenure in Luhansk was plagued by press scrutiny. Major headlines focused on illicit coal extraction, with local journalists alleging that trucks carrying illegal coal routinely passed checkpoints as unregistered mines proliferated in government-controlled areas. Harbuz denied all involvement, maintaining he had no connection to the coal trade.
Further controversy surrounded the «Olimp» sports complex near Sievierodonetsk, where Harbuz resided during his time in office. After the facility was renovated using public funds, it was sold via the Prozorro procurement platform for 7 million UAH to his deputy governor, Yurii Klymenko, after which luxury cottages were constructed in the adjacent pine forest.
Public backlash also targeted Harbuz’s extensive hunting activities. Photos surfaced online showing him and his son posing next to killed wildlife, including wild boars, roe deer, and wolves. Harbuz claimed the photos were a setup staged by opponents, asserting that the images had been intentionally cropped.
Harbuz’s asset declarations also contained notable discrepancies. Filings revealed that his wife, a Russian citizen, had acquired a 624,000 square meter plot of land in Russia in 2008. His disclosures later incorporated over 20 hectares of land in Milove, a residential house, and an apartment in Lviv that had gone unrecorded in prior years.
Despite reporting minimal personal earnings in earlier filings—such as an annual income of 79,000 UAH and less than 1,000 UAH in bank accounts in 2013—investigative outlets published images of Harbuz wearing a high-end Swiss watch during an official visit to the village of Katerynivka, where residents were experiencing severe food shortages.
Following the full-scale invasion in 2022, Harbuz’s commercial assets were directly impacted by the conflict. His primary agricultural companies, including «Harbuz Yu. H.» and «Agro Grant,» were located in the Milove district, an area that came under Russian occupation in mid-2022.
In July 2022, Harbuz formally withdrew from the ownership structure of these enterprises, transferring his shares to his sister. Harbuz currently resides in the Kyiv region while serving in his new advisory role for the Black Sea Shipping Company.