Yevhenii Muraev

Yevheniy Volodymyrovych Murayev (; born 2 December 1976) is a Ukrainian politician and media owner. He was the leader of the now-banned political party Nashi.

Murayev has been a deputy of the Kharkiv Oblast Council (two convocations) and a deputy of the Ukrainian parliament between 2012 and 2019 (VII convocation and VIII convocation). In the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election Murayev headed the nationwide list of Opposition Bloc, but this party failed to win a parliamentary seat.

Murayev is a former member of Party of Regions and Opposition Bloc and former chairman of the political council of the For Life (Za zhyttia) party.

Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Murayev disappeared and was rumoured to be in Russia, while other sources claimed he lived in Austria. The British government alleged prior to the invasion that Murayev was selected by the Kremlin to be the next president of Ukraine under a new government. In January 2025 Murayev revealed that he lived in China.

Biography Early life and professional career Murayev was born on 2 December 1976 in Zmiiv, Kharkiv Oblast in then the Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union. Murayev's father Volodymyr Kuzmych was the general director of a construction company Rapid CJSC. His mother Olha Oleksiivna was associate professor of the department of chemistry at National University of Kharkiv. He received his second higher education at the Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University, he graduated there in 2014.

Murayev was reelected in the Kharkiv Oblast Council during the 2010 Ukrainian local elections, this time for Party of Regions.

In the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election he was elected in electoral district 181 located in Zmiiv. He was Chairman of the Subcommittee on Foreign Economic Relations and Cross-Border Cooperation.

In the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election Murayev was reelected as an independent candidate in (the same) district 181. and (five days later) created the new political party Nashi (Ours).

On 10 January 2019, Murayev's party elected him as their candidate in the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election. On 7 March 2019, Murayev pulled out of the election in favor of Oleksandr Vilkul. In the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election Murayev headed the nationwide list of Opposition Bloc that won 3.23% of the votes and thus did not overcome the 5% election barrier, thereby keeping Murayev out of parliament.

In 2014, Murayev became the owner of the Kharkiv Internet channel "Robinson TV", the MIGnews website and the news channel NewsOne. TV channel NewsOne was banned by a decree of President Volodymyr Zelensky in February 2021. Then, NASH took the place of the banned pro-Russian TV channels as it mostly features the same guests and similar messages, until the channel was also banned in June 2023.

In January 2022, the British government accused Russia of seeking to supplant Ukraine's government via military force, and replace it with a pro-Russian administration possibly led by Murayev. British Foreign Minister Liz Truss wrote on Twitter that the UK "will not tolerate Kremlin plot to install pro-Russian leadership in Ukraine." Murayev denied any such plan. Yevhen Murayev rejected the statement since he is under Russian sanctions. Russia dismissed the accusation as "misinformation". The Russian Foreign Ministry said the British accusation was "evidence that it is the NATO countries, led by the Anglo-Saxons, that are escalating tensions around Ukraine."

In February 2022, it was announced that the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine had introduced sanctions against the TV channel NASH, on which Murayev appeared regularly. The channel was going to be closed. It was officially banned from broadcasting on 8 June 2023. On 24 February Murayev posted on Facebook “All these years, our government has lived by war, built all its policies around it, and now war is on the doorstep of each of us. These are the consequences of wrong and stupid decisions that everyone will have to unravel." Murayev latest Facebook post was on 25 February 2022. His whereabouts (and opinions) then became unknown. Internet newspaper Ukrainska Pravda's sources (in law enforcement agencies) told them (in December 2022) that Murayev had left Ukraine in May 2022. In September 2022, Ukrainska Pravda journalists stated that Murayev and his family live in Vienna and sometimes visit Bratislava on business.

On 14 June 2022 the Eighth Administrative Court of Appeal banned Murayev's party Nashi. The property of the party and all its branches were transferred to the state.

In January 2025 Murayev gave an interview revealing that he and his family lived in Beijing, China. In the interview Murayev claimed that President Zelensky "is not going to end the war under any circumstances." and called Russia a country which "we have a centuries-old history within a single state". He called the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine "bad relations between the countries" and went on to claim that Ukrainians and Russians are "not foreign people." Murayev also complained about alleged "Ukrainian non-compliance with the Minsk agreements."

Murayev's assets were blocked and he was stripped of his Ukrainian state awards on 19 January 2025 by a decree of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Views Murayev considered the February 2014 Maidan revolution a Western-backed coup d’etat.

With the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian War, Murayev said that it was a "civil conflict", noting that both sides received support from foreign states: Ukraine from the United States, and the separatists from Russia.

Murayev believes that "NATO does not wait for Ukraine." In response to this in June 2018 the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine launched criminal proceedings against then MP Murayev on charges of treason and deliberately spreading false information about a crime. On 13 June 2018 Murayev published a video in which he apologizes to Sentsov. Murayev claimed he had made his remarks "to show how the government works." He has three sons and one daughter.