Yukhym Zvyahilskyi

Yukhym Leonidovych Zvyahilsky (, ; 20 February 1933 – 6 November 2021) was a Ukrainian politician. He is the only member of Verkhovna Rada who was elected to parliament in eight elections (from 1990 until Zvyahilsky did not participate in the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election). In 1993 and 1994, Zvyahilsky served as the First Vice Prime Minister and acting Prime Minister. Biography Zvyahilsky was born the son of a Jewish civil servant in Stalino on 20 February 1933. In 1956, he graduated from the Donetsk Industrial Institute as a mining engineer. After graduating, Zvyahilsky worked at mine #13 of the Soviet trust company "Kuibyshevugol" (Kuibyshev Coal) as a chief assistant, later as a chief of a coal precinct, chief engineer, and director. In 1972, he wrote a thesis, "Observation of regional technological schemes of mining fields in the development of thin inclined layers (in reference to the Donetsk-Makiivka region of Donetsk basin)" (Moscow Mining Institute), earning him the academical title of a Candidate of Sciences. Later Zvyahilsky defended his doctorate on the subject "Geomechanical foundations of landslides of the earth surface above mines, which can be eliminated" (Institute of geotechnical mechanics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine). Coincidentally, in the early 1990s, Ukraine suffered from the miners' strikes that led to the early presidential elections in 1994. From 1970 to 1979, Zvyahilsky worked at the Kuibyshev Mine Corporation of the Industrial Union "Donetskugol" (Donetsk Coal). In 1975, he was appointed a director of the company. From 1979 through 1992, Zvyahilsky was a director of the Zasyadko coal mine of the Industrial Union "Donetskugol". The mine, known for its chronic accidents, became particularly famous in 2007 for the most deadly disaster in the mining history of Ukraine.