A Month After Searches, Zaporizhzhia Mayor Vladimir Buryak Resigns

He said the reason was health problems.

Zaporizhzhia Mayor Vladimir Buryak has resigned. A month earlier, searches were carried out at his premises in a criminal case opened under the article on “misappropriation, embezzlement of property or its seizure by abuse of official position.”

Buryak’s Resignation

On September 29, during a session of the Zaporizhzhia City Council, Zaporizhzhia Mayor Vladimir Buryak announced that he was stepping down.

According to him, he had been on sick leave for medical tests, and given that he has been on the operating table three times, doctors recommended that he “take care of his health.”

Vladimir Buryak
Former Mayor of Zaporizhzhia

I am not planning to leave the city, and I am not leaving politics either. Vladimir Buryak’s party, “Unity,” is continuing what it started, and I personally will actively take part in the development of the party and my hometown.

City council deputies considered the mayor’s resignation statement at a separate extraordinary session. In a secret ballot, deputies supported Buryak’s early resignation.

Of the 50 deputies, 45 supported the mayor’s resignation, three abstained, and only two voted against.

Deputy of the city council from the “Servant of the People” party and secretary of the Zaporizhzhia City Council Anatoliy Kurtev was appointed acting mayor. 

He will perform the duties of city head until a mayor is elected at an early election or until the first session of the city council elected at the regular election convenes.

Earlier Searches

On August 19, an investigative search was conducted in Buryak’s office at the Zaporizhzhia City Council as part of a case concerning the embezzlement of budget funds. It was not reported which specific episode of embezzlement was involved.

In addition, a series of searches was conducted at the mayor’s advisers’ homes and offices, in district administrations and municipal enterprises. 

It was reported that investigators conducted a series of searches as part of an open criminal case under Article 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (misappropriation, embezzlement of property or its seizure by abuse of official position).

What is known about Vladimir Buryak

Vladimir Buryak was first elected mayor of Zaporizhzhia in the 2015 local elections as a self-nominated candidate.

At the same time, a number of media outlets analyzing his work as mayor have called Buryak a protégé of oligarch Rinat Akhmetov, linking this to the fact that before his political career Buryak worked as an engineer at the oligarch’s plant Zaporizhstal.

In 2019, Buryak ran for the Verkhovna Rada as a candidate of the “Opposition Bloc,” which ultimately failed to clear the five-percent threshold for entering parliament.

In 2020, he founded the “Vladimir Buryak Party “Unity”.” He used the municipal TV channel Z and the private newspaper “Zaporizhska Sich,” which is funded through city council budget procurement, for his own election publicity.

He won in the first round of the 2020 elections. A likely reason for Buryak’s resignation could have been the ongoing confrontation this year between five factions of the city council, which blocked the work of sessions.