Balitsky Yevgeny Vitalievich

Balitsky Yevgeny Vitalievich was born on December 10, 1969, in Melitopol, Zaporizhzhia Oblast. He is a Ukrainian and Russian politician, government official, and collaborator. In 2022, following the occupation of parts of Zaporizhzhia Oblast by Russia during its invasion of Ukraine, he agreed to cooperate with the occupation authorities and was appointed head of the occupation “Military-Civil Administration of Zaporizhzhia Oblast.”

Previously, Balitsky served as a member of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in the VII and VIII convocations, as well as chairman of the subcommittee on the protection and rational use of natural resources and the elimination of the consequences of the Chornobyl disaster. He is also a senior research fellow at the Institute of World Economy in Kyiv, a co-owner of the Melitopol TV channel “MTV+” and other media outlets, and chairman of the board of Agat LLC.

In February 2024, Balitsky stated that the Russian occupation administration had deported a significant number of civilians who did not support the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the occupation. In 2015, he became a suspect in a criminal case involving the embezzlement of 37 million hryvnias (about $1.5 million at the December 2015 exchange rate) of state funds. The investigation alleges that the Balitsky family took out a loan from “Ukreximbank” in 2008, using the property of one of their enterprises—the “Melitopol Bearing Plant”—as collateral, after which the plant began the process of bankruptcy.

Since 2022, Balitsky, as a collaborator and participant in the theft of grain, has been under international sanctions from the European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, and several other countries.