In 1995 he graduated from the Automobile Highway Institute of the Donetsk National Technical University and in 2002 from the Interregional Academy of Personnel Management.
[4] In 2009 he joined the All-Ukrainian Association Fatherland (Batkivshchyna) and the next year headed its city's party cell.
[4] Rybak was abducted by separatists on 17 April 2014 after trying to raise the flag of Ukraine on Horlivka's town council building.
[6] According to forensic reports, the victims were drowned, their bodies were covered with burns and stab wounds, and their stomachs were ripped open.
[7] In May 2020 Igor Strelkov, a key organizer of the Donetsk People's Republic's militant groups confessed in an interview with Ukrainian journalist Dmitry Gordon that he bore some responsibility for the killing of Rybak: "Naturally, Rybak, as a person who actively opposed the "militias", was an enemy in my eyes.