Yuriy Ivanovych Yekhanurov (Ukrainian: Юрій Іванович Єхануров) is a former Prime Minister of Ukraine and former Minister of Defense in the current government of Yulia Tymoshenko. He was born on August 23, 1948, in the village Belkachi in the far-north Yakut ASSR, which is currently the Sakha Republic within the Russian Federation. Yekhanurov, an ethnic Buryat, moved to Ukraine during Soviet times, where he has spent most of his life and career. He holds a PhD-equivalent degree in Economics, is married, and has one son.

Yekhanurov graduated from the Kiev Construction tekhnikum in 1967, and the Kiev Institute of National Economy in 1973. He was appointed manager of the "Kievgorstroy-4"'s Plant of reinforced concrete as his first job in 1974. Yekhanurov quickly rose the ranks, already heading the "Stroydetal'" industrial group from 1985 to 1988. In that year, he was appointed deputy chairman of the Kiev construction directorate, the "Glavkievgorstroy".

When Ukraine gained independence in 1991, Yekhanurov started working for the Kiev municipal government, overseeing economic reforms. He was appointed Deputy Minister of Economy of Ukraine in 1993, and later headed the State Property Fund of Ukraine (which coordinated the privatisation) from 1994 to 1997. Yekhanurov also served for a short time as Minister of Economy in the cabinet of Pavlo Lazarenko in 1997. He was elected member of the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, in 1998.