On July 5, 2010, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine passed a resolution to dismiss Yurii Reshetnikov from the post of the head of the State Committee on Nationalities and Religions. Yurii Bohutskyi was appointed the new head of the committee, reports the press service of the cabinet.

Yurii Bohutskyi is an academician of the Academy of Arts of Ukraine, Honored Art Worker, professor, candidate of philosophical sciences, and was awarded with the Order For Merits of the third degree.

He was born on September 24, 1952, in the village of Mykolaivka, in the Kherson region. He graduated from the Kherson Culture School, Kyiv State Institute of Culture, and the Higher Party School of the Communist Party of Ukraine majoring in political sciences. In 1975-1991 he worked for Komsomol and the Communist Party in Kherson and Kyiv. 

In 1991-1992 he worked as the deputy Minister of Culture of Ukraine.   In 1992-1994 he was an assistant of the president of Ukraine. In 1994-1995 he was the acting professor of the Institute of Further Studies of culture workers. In 1995-1997 he worked as an adviser of the prime minister of Ukraine and in 1997-1999 as an assistant of the prime minister of Ukraine. 

From January to August of 1999, Bohutskyi worked as the head of the Department of Humanitarian Questions of the President of Ukraine. In 1999-2001 he worked as the deputy head of the presidential administration and head of the main department on matters of domestic policy. 

From August to December 1999 and June 2001 to February 2005 he worked as the Minister of Culture and Arts, in 2006-2007 as the Minister of Culture and Tourism of Ukraine.  

In the recent times, he worked as the deputy head of the Secretariat of the President of Ukraine. In March 2009 he retired. On March 31, 2010, he was appointed Advisor of the President of Ukraine. He participated in the organization of the visit of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow to Ukraine in 2009.