As of 1 September, the territories of districts 46, 51, 52, 57, 58, 59 and 60 in the oblast are fully or partially occupied after 2022. It is worth remembering that another nine districts have been under occupation for the last ten years and have not been represented in the parliament since the 8th convocation.
The 46th electoral district, located mostly in the Bakhmut Raion of the oblast, is represented by Fedir Khrystenko, an MP from the former OPFL party who is currently not a member of any faction.
As of 24 February 2022, there is no information on the MP’s whereabouts. According to media reports, he left the territory of Ukraine on the eve of the full-scale invasion, rented an apartment in Poland and has not returned to Ukraine since then, as he also rented a hotel room in the UAE.
Since then, Khrystenko has not submitted any draft laws or parliamentary inquiries. He has also not been registered at any parliamentary session since 24 February 2022. The MP does not use social media; one of his Facebook pages has been deleted, while the other has been inactive since the 2019 parliamentary campaign.
The 51st electoral district, located in part of Bakhmut Raion, is represented in the parliament by Oleksandr Kovalov, who was self-nominated. During his tenure in the Verkhovna Rada, the MP was a member of the Dovira group, and now he is a member of the Restoration of Ukraine group.
During the full-scale invasion, he co-authored 49 draft laws and resolutions of the VRU, of which three have been adopted. In total, the MP took part in 43.12% of parliamentary votes after 24 February 2022.
Information about the MP’s work appears at long intervals on social media, but he usually does not write these posts himself. The MP himself is only mentioned in the publications of his colleagues in the VRU, for example, about the consideration of the so-called “mobilisation draft law” in the Committee on National Security, Defence and Intelligence.
The 52nd electoral district, which is also located in part of Bakhmut Raion and another part of which has been under Russian occupation for ten years, is represented in parliament by self-nominated Yevhen Yakovenko, currently a member of the Restoration of Ukraine group.
Since February 2022, the MP has co-authored 93 draft laws or resolutions of the VRU, of which three have been adopted. He has not updated his Facebook page since 31 December 2019, and the last posts on it were private, mostly congratulating residents of his electoral district on public and professional holidays.
The MP has also voted at 52.5% of the parliamentary sessions since the beginning of the invasion.
The 57th and 58th electoral districts are located in Mariupol.
The 57th electoral district was represented in parliament by Vadym Novynskyi, a member of the banned OPFL party, who announced his resignation in the summer of 2022. The Security Service of Ukraine subsequently seized Novynskyi’s property. He is also on the NSDC sanctions list, and criminal proceedings have been opened against him for aiding the aggressor country.
Prior to his resignation, Novynskyi was a member of the VRU Committee on Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine. He also took part in 21.8% of the votes during the 7th session of the VRU of the 9th convocation. On his Facebook page, the former MP promotes pro-Russian narratives and regularly writes posts about the Russian Orthodox Church.
For example, in August 2024, Vadym Novynskyi participated in consecrating a Russian Orthodox Church in Cyprus, together with the Russian ambassador and a hierarch of the Russian Church.
The 58th electoral district is represented by Serhii Mahera, a member of the former OPFL party.
Since the start of the full-scale invasion, he has co-authored 15 draft laws or resolutions, of which two have been adopted. Mahera has participated in 62% of the VRU’s votes since 24 February 2022.
In general, the MP rarely writes about his work in the parliament on one of the Facebook pages. Posts are private and contain memories of his native region, while on the other page, publications are similar. However, there were publications related to the work of the parliament on the problem of internally displaced persons.
The 59th electoral district, located in Volnovakha and Pokrovsk raions of the oblast, is represented by Volodymyr Moroz, a member of the OPFL. In the spring of 2022, he left the OPFL faction and joined the Restoration of Ukraine group.
He is a co-author of 126 draft laws and resolutions of the VRU, of which five have been adopted. Since the start of the full-scale invasion, Moroz has participated in 65.3% of the VRU’s votes.
On his Facebook page, the MP actively covers his work and the transfer of humanitarian aid to IDPs, the problem of evacuating civilians in Donbas settlements, and trips to the frontline regions in eastern Ukraine.
The 60th electoral district, located in Mariupol and Volnovakha raions, was represented in the parliament by Dmytro Lubinets, who was self-nominated.
On 1 July 2022, Lubinets became the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights. Since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion and before his appointment as ombudsman, he has co-authored 15 draft laws or resolutions of the VRU, of which 11 have been adopted. He took part in 66.9% of the votes at the 7th session of the 9th convocation of the parliament.
The official’s social media are active, as the ombudsman’s list of tasks has grown dramatically during the full-scale invasion. However, the district itself is not currently represented in parliament.
Position of MPs
If we look at the overall picture in terms of voting for draft law No. 8371, which is supposed to regulate the activities of religious organisations associated with the Russian Federation (primarily the UOC) on the territory of Ukraine, none of the surveyed parliamentarians from Donetsk Oblast expressed support for the draft law.
Three parliamentarians were absent on the day of the vote, and two spoke out against the document’s adoption. Two other representatives of the region, Dmytro Lubinets and Vadym Novynskyi, had resigned at the time of the vote.
The activity of the region’s representatives in parliament is relatively low. Only Serhiy Mahera and Volodymyr Moroz took part in more than 60% of the votes during the studied period, while another MP, Yevhen Yakovenko, attended slightly more than half of the sessions, and Oleksandr Kovalev attended 40% of the sessions.
It should be added that one MP from the region, Vadym Novynskyi, is being investigated for aiding the aggressor state and is currently abroad.
