Compilation of the National Influence Rating-2021 in the Luhansk region faced certain difficulties. First of all, because a significant part of the territory of the region is occupied, and in the second part, due to the proximity to the front, local elections have not been held for a long time and there are no deputies.
Even in the last local elections held on October 25, 2020 throughout Ukraine, Luhansk region was deprived. The Central Election Commission has banned voting in eight united territorial communities of Luhansk region. At the same time, the situation also affected Severodonetsk for the first time, which is now the administrative center of the Ukrainian-controlled part of the Luhansk region. There, as in Lysychansk, the local government was until that moment elected - and only three months before the 2020 elections, military-civilian administrations were created here, which meant the cancellation of citizens' free will.
In this regard, the experts of the National rating limited themselves to a list of the 10 most influential people in the Luhansk region, unlike the TOP-20 in other regions.
The experts gave the first place in the ranking to Yuriy Boyko, who is closely connected with his native land - co-chairman of the "OPZH" party, People's Deputy of Ukraine of the XNUMXth, XNUMXth and XNUMXth convocations. Boyko is considered one of the richest Ukrainians who owns various types of assets, but in the last ten years he is better known as a politician and one of the most highly rated candidates for the presidency of Ukraine. He has great weight among his countrymen - and the votes of Luhansk residents, who year after year put him first in the parliamentary and presidential elections - this is a confirmation.
The second line of the rating was taken by the chairman of the Luhansk regional military-civil administration, Sergey Gaidai. A native of Severodonetsk, his political career even took him to the Zakarpattia region, which is farthest from his native land, where he headed the Mukachevo regional state administration according to the Petro Poroshenko Bloc quota. Later, the politician joined Zelenskyi's team and soon headed the Luhansk region, where he comes from. When he was appointed to Kyiv, they noted that "a brave person is needed for this position, and Gaidai fits this definition." From the moment of his appointment, the new head of the region managed to more or less reconcile the local elites, so he is rightfully on the second line of the list.
In the third place of the TOP-10 is Alexander Stryuk, the head of the Severodonetsk military-civil administration. An active SBU employee previously unknown to no one, he managed to gain considerable weight in the region within an hour or so after his appointment. Note that Stryuk replaced the elected mayor of Severodonetsk, Valentin Kazakov, who was remembered for his endless war with city deputies. The City Council dismissed him six times, and six times Kazakov was reinstated by court decisions. The appointment of Stryuk and the creation of a military-civilian administration made it possible to end this multi-year political crisis.
The fourth place goes to Sergey Shakhov, a majority member of parliament from the Luhansk region, co-chairman of the "Nash Kray" party. Local politician Shakhov and members of his team turned out to be few exceptions in the 2019 parliamentary elections, who managed to easily defeat the candidates from "Servants of the People". Shakhov behaves actively in the parliament as well.
In fifth place is the influential chairman of the Severodonetsk district council, a member of the political council of the OPZZ, thirty-year-old Rostyslav Dubovoy. This is a representative of the new elite of the OPZZ, which did not stop the rise and fall of the Party of Regions, and learned to work and win authority in far from such "hothouse" conditions as the "regionals" ten years ago.
The sixth place goes to Oleksandr Sukhov, a People's Deputy of Ukraine, a member of the "Nash Kray" party and an associate of Sergei Shakhov, who became famous throughout Ukraine for being the first member of the Verkhovna Rada to contract the COVID-2020 coronavirus infection in the spring of 19.
Leonid Bugaev, the chairman of the board of PJSC "Severodonetskoe obedinienie Azot", one of the few successful enterprises in the region that provides jobs to the people of Luhansk, took the 7th place.
On the 8th and 9th place are two more members of Sergey Shakhov's team - people's deputies from the Luhansk region, Sergey Velmozhny and Alexander Lukashev.
Rounding out the top ten ranking of influential Luhansk residents is Sergey Khortyv, the mayor of Rubezhny.
