In his youth, he was a member of the neo-fascist organisation 'Russian National Unity'. In March 2014, with the beginning of Russian aggression against Ukraine, he was proclaimed "people's governor" of Donetsk region at a rally and campaigned for the accession of Donetsk region to Russia. He was detained by the SBU and later exchanged.

Head of the terrorist organisation 'People's Militia of Donbas', he is the head of the 'Novorossiya' movement.

Since the beginning of the invasion in 2022, he has been fighting on the side of Russia as an anti-aircraft gunner. Gubarev compared Volodymyr Zelenskyi to Hitler and accused Ukraine's leadership of Satanism.

In 2023, he became a member of the Club of Angry Patriots, an organisation of Igor Strelkov that supports Russia's invasion of Ukraine and criticises the Russian authorities for their ineptitude in conducting hostilities. On 21 July 2023, Gubarev was detained during a rally outside the court building, where Strelkov's supporters demanded that he be released from arrest.

He is a supporter of Putin and the Lukashenko regimes in Belarus, Venezuela and Czarist Russia, and supports Ukraine's accession to the Customs Union. Since the beginning of Euromaidan, he has been an opponent of the protests and sympathised with the Berkut special forces.