In order to appoint a person without a legal background to this post, we had to quickly change the laws

The Verkhovna Rada, with 264 votes, approved the decree of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on the appointment of Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, who had previously received four years in prison for particularly large embezzlement, but was pardoned. Lutsenko does not have a legal education - he is an electronics engineer by training.

Yuriy Lutsenko

The whole of Ukraine followed an extraordinary event today: the Verkhovna Rada’s attempt to approve a person without special legal education as head of the General Prosecutor’s Office. The parliamentary tribune was blocked by members of the Radical Party faction, demanding the formation of a special investigative commission to investigate the extent of Poroshenko’s involvement in the “offshore Panama scandal.”

At 17.03, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Andriy Parubiy announced: the President of the country and Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Army Petro Poroshenko is participating in the evening plenary session. For the sake of speaking before the deputy corps, Pyotr Alekseevich postponed his visit to Great Britain. All official media wrote about this.

Poroshenko - amid chants: “Shame! A shame!" performed by deputies from the Radical Party - thanked parliament for adopting the “revolutionary” law on the prosecutor’s office. The law will finally put an end to “the Stalinist practice of general supervision” and will launch the process of radical reform of the prosecutor’s office.

Having announced that Yuriy Lutsenko, the leader of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction, will become the new Prosecutor General, the President of Ukraine outlined his most important tasks. Among them is an investigation into the death of forty-eight people in the Odessa House of Trade Unions on May 2, 2014, the events on the Kiev Maidan in 2013-2014, a huge array of “anti-corruption cases” and so on.

In order to have the opportunity to vote for the appointment of Lutsenko as Prosecutor General today, May 12, immediately after the adoption by parliament at the morning meeting of the law “On amendments to certain legislative acts regarding the activities of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine” (No. 4645), it was signed by the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Andriy Parubiy, and for him - President Petro Poroshenko. The point, in fact, was to prosecutor general could become a citizen without a law degree.

Then the changes to the law on the prosecutor's office were published in a special issue of the parliamentary newspaper "Voice of Ukraine", published at approximately 15:20 and dated today - May 12, 2016.

This has never happened before in the parliamentary practice of Ukraine - to publish a special newspaper with the necessary law on voting day in order to be able to hold the next vote on the same day on the basis of this law!

Almost simultaneously, the Secretariat of the Verkhovna Rada registered draft resolution No. 4654 on the Verkhovna Rada’s consent to the President for the appointment of Yuriy Lutsenko to the post of Prosecutor General.

In a 10-minute speech to the deputy corps, Yuriy Lutsenko promised: on his desk there will always be an aluminum mug from which the future Prosecutor General drank tea for several years, first in the Lukyanovsky pre-trial detention center in Kyiv, and then in the Menskaya correctional colony (in common parlance “in the red zone” - because in the past Lutsenko served as the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine). “Yulia Vladimirovna, you and I were put in a colony by people with higher legal education!” - Lutsenko reminded the leader of the Batkivshchyna faction, Yulia Tymoshenko. The politician, who previously warmly supported Lutsenko the minister, is now categorically against his approval...

Let me remind you that the first attempt to pass the “Lutsenko Law” on May 10 failed; The day before yesterday, only two parliamentary votes were missing.

Contrary to the regulations of the Verkhovna Rada, on May 11, a similar bill was submitted to parliament for consideration.

The law was adopted after the maximum number of deputies of the coalition factions were mobilized and recalled from business trips in the Rada. Through political bargaining, the authorities attracted the “Renaissance”, “Will of the People” factions and even partially the “Opposition Bloc” to the vote.

At 17.29, having heard speaker Parubiy’s gratitude for participating in the parliamentary meeting, President Poroshenko left the session hall.

30 minutes were allotted to discuss the candidacy of the new head of the GPU. As a result, he was confirmed as Prosecutor General.

Help "MK". Lutsenko is a native of Rivne, born in 1964. He worked as a designer at a factory, then became a local deputy, and then became an official. He was an active participant in the “Orange Revolution” and the events on the Maidan. He worked as head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in 2005-6, both under Tymoshenko and Yanukovych as Prime Minister.

Lutsenko, under President Yanukovych, was arrested in 2010 for embezzlement (among other things, he protected his driver by illegally allocating him an apartment), and was convicted 2 years later (the sentence included confiscation of property). He received another sentence in 2012 - two years in prison for negligence in the investigation of Yushchenko's poisoning. In 2013, he was pardoned by Yanukovych's presidential decree. Now Lutsenko is considered a rehabilitated political prisoner.

Lutsenko has excellent relations with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and, until his current appointment, headed the presidential faction in the Rada.

“A tough ruler does not rule for long,” wrote the German philosopher and poet. And politician Yuri Vitalievich Lutsenko has been illustrating this quote for more than twenty years. It would be difficult to find a more controversial personality in politics. This is a man who went through two “orange revolutions”, one of the commanders of the Kyiv Maidan, a prosecutor general without the appropriate education, a victim of the presidential regime and a violator of public order at Frankfurt am Main airport.

Yuri Vitalievich Lutsenko was born into the family of the secretary of the party committee of the Rivne region on December 14, 1964, in the city of Rivne. He received his basic secondary education at gymnasium No. 7 in the city of Rivne, upon completion of which he received a gold medal for academic success. After high school, Yura entered the Polytechnic Institute of the city of Lvov, the Faculty of Electrical Engineering.

In 1989, Yuri received a diploma in electrical engineering. Yuri began his work as a site foreman at a plant in his hometown of Rivne. Then he received the position of head of the technical bureau of the workshop, and a little later - chief designer.

Policy

Yuri's career in politics began at the age of 30, with the position of Deputy Chairman of the Council people's deputies Rivne region. Further, Lutsenko’s career develops more and more rapidly and unexpectedly. Soon Yuri received the position of head of the economic committee of the Rivne regional administration. And in 1997 he was appointed to the post of Deputy Minister for Science and Technology. At the same time, he went to parliamentary elections for the first time, but unsuccessfully.

In 1998, Yuri became an assistant to the current Prime Minister Valery Pustovoitenko and advised Alexander Moroz. Since 1991 it became part of the SPU. Since the late 1990s, the politician has been actively fighting the regime of the current president of Ukraine and even becomes one of the chairmen of the “Ukraine without” action.

Yuri Vitalievich liked the role of a rebel, and already in 2004 he became one of the leaders of the first “Orange Revolution” in Kyiv, in support. During the same period, the politician was the editor of the Ukrainian weekly Grani Plus.

The unpredictable and powerful “Orange Revolution” brought Yuri to the post of head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, despite the lack of specialized education. Yuri's first legal act in his new post was a decree on personnel purges. It is with this step, according to the politician, that order begins in the country. But things did not go beyond slogans: the new head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs initiated a number of cases against politicians who supported the previous government, but none of them ended in anything.

And Ukrainian drivers remember Yuri for his reforms regarding the traffic police: purges of personnel, confiscation of driver’s licenses for non-compliance with the rules traffic, anti-corruption measures. His position remained unchanged even when heads of government changed, including under Yanukovych, with whom Lutsenko categorically refused to work. Only in 2006 was the politician relieved of his post.

Field of resignation Lutsenko created and headed the People's Self-Defense Organization, which was in opposition to the current government. Closer to the early elections, they merged with Our Ukraine, forming the NUNS electoral bloc.

In 2007, a coalition of the NUNS with the bloc was created. And in 2010, criminal proceedings were opened against the former head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who so zealously fought against corruption in power, for abuse of power and seizure of state property in special areas. large sizes. After his arrest, the politician went on a hunger strike.

In 2012, the court sentenced former head Ministry of Internal Affairs: four years in prison and complete confiscation of property. And a year later, in 2013, the next president of Ukraine, about whom Lutsenko spoke so unflatteringly, signed a pardon for him. Yuri was rehabilitated only after the overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych.

And in 2014, Yuri becomes an adviser to the new president and head of the newly created political party, called the “Petro Poroshenko Bloc”. Supporting Euromaidan in 2013, Lutsenko suffered from the opposition for his proposals to promote the protest to the east of the country - the politician was doused with brilliant green in Kharkov. In September 2014, Yuriy Lutsenko called the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics a cancer and called for resolving the political conflict by force.

Attorney General

In May 2016, Yuri Vitalievich Lutsenko was appointed to the position of Prosecutor General.

One day before the appointment, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted changes to the law that made it possible to appoint persons to this position who do not have the necessary education and work experience. IN new position Yuri again promises to rid the department of corruption.

Personal life

Yuri Vitalievich is married to Irina Stepanovna Lutsenko. The future spouses met while studying at the Polytechnic Institute in Lvov. By the way, Irina Stepanovna also takes an active political position in the government of Ukraine. In the early 2000s, she defended gender rights and the rights of national minorities, and since 2017 she has been a member of the Verkhovna Rada from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc.

The Lutsenko family has two children - Alexander (born in 1989) and Vitaly (born in 1999). In September 2017, the wedding of the eldest son, Alexander Yuryevich Lutsenko, and marketer Anastasia, whom the newly-made father-in-law calls his daughter, took place. The celebration took place in one of the best restaurant complexes in Ukraine with the world name “Queen Country Club”.

Among those invited were such persons as President Petro Poroshenko and others. In addition, at the wedding of the son of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, journalists who intended to show how executive Yuriy Lutsenko uses state resources for personal purposes.

Wedding or family photos on a Facebook page and others in social networks no – the politician does not want to show his personal life to the public. And the politician’s biography is not replete with details of leisure and recreation.

Yuriy Lutsenko now

Citizens of Ukraine still remember Yuriy Lutsenko’s loud statements about anti-corruption measures at the post of Prosecutor General, but, in fact, neither criminal liability of officials nor even dismissals followed. The Ukrainian press considers the case of major killers Petrosyan and Tolstosheev, who committed a fatal accident and remained unpunished, as another proof of the prosecutor general’s unfoundedness.

Directly in 2017, the Prosecutor General took part in monitoring the ATO and the construction of fortifications. In addition, information about the work of the department has been published on the official website of the Prosecutor General’s Office, where successes in the fight against corruption are noted. In particular, since the beginning of 2017, 7,475 cases of bribery of Ukrainian officials have been identified, of which 2,323 cases have been referred to court.

Achievements

• 1997-1998 - Deputy Minister of Ukraine for Science and Technology
• 2000 – co-chairman of the “Ukraine without Kuchma” action
• 2002 – elected as a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine
• 2005 – Head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine
• 2004 – Advisor to Viktor Yushchenko
• 2007-2010 - Head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine
• 2010 – a criminal case was initiated for abuse of power
• 2012 – sentenced to four years in prison
• 2013 – amnestied by Viktor Yanukovych
• 213-2014 – co-chairman of Euromaidan in Kyiv
• 2016 – appointed to the position of Prosecutor General of Ukraine

Through the Verkhovna Rada, the decision to appoint his godfather Yuriy Lutsenko to the post of Prosecutor General of Ukraine. The new head of the law enforcement agency is a very close ally of the head of state, but does not have a higher legal education or experience working in the prosecutor's office, and his political career was marked by a number of scandalous incidents. Lenta.ru recalls the main milestones in the biography of the new Prosecutor General of Ukraine.

Communist engineer

Electronics engineer Yuriy Lutsenko began political career immediately after Ukraine gained independence in 1991, joining the Socialist Party. This choice can be explained simply: his father held prominent positions in Communist Party, which was then banned for some time. Therefore, the family defected to the closest political camp. At the same time, again under the patronage of an influential relative, Lutsenko occupied more and more high positions in his native Rivne region, and the public campaign “Ukraine without Kuchma” in 2002 helped him reach the central level in Kyiv.

Large-scale street protests broke out in Ukraine after the so-called cassette scandal related to the investigation into the murder of journalist Georgy Gongadze. Lutsenko was one of the coordinators of the protesters. On this wave, in 2002, he managed to become a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada and was very active in the “Orange Revolution”, for which he was awarded the post of Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. Lutsenko headed the Ministry of Internal Affairs from 2005 to 2010 with a short break in 2006-2007. The first civilian head of a law enforcement agency in the history of Ukraine, he held this position under three prime ministers.

However, after winning presidential elections Viktor Yanukovych in 2010, the politician had serious troubles, he even ended up in jail. True, in the spring of 2013 he was released due to a pardon. And then Euromaidan broke out. Of course, Lutsenko was in the forefront. After the coup, which led to protests, he helped Petro Poroshenko with all his might. After the parliamentary re-elections, he headed the faction of the presidential bloc in the Verkhovna Rada.

Photo: Vladislav Sodel / Kommersant

Rowdy

The first serious scandal involving Lutsenko occurred in 2008: during a meeting of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, he beat the then mayor of Kyiv Leonid Kosmos Chernovetsky. According to eyewitnesses, while discussing land issues, Chernovetsky suddenly announced that Lutsenko demanded land for himself in the capital of Ukraine, threatening to put the son of the mayor of Kyiv in prison. When President Viktor Yushchenko and his chief of staff, Viktor Baloga, left the meeting room, Lutsenko hit the mayor. According to one version, he dealt one blow to the face, according to another, two blows: to the face and below the belt. Eyewitnesses said that the Kyiv mayor had blood all over his face. There was a suspicion of a concussion.

“Such savage behavior is a shame for all of Ukraine. I... will definitely bring the criminal case to an end... either a mental hospital or prison awaits this gentleman,” Chernovetsky promised then. Lutsenko did not remain in debt, expressing his vision of the incident. He said that the mayor of Kyiv is “a liar and just a scoundrel,” and besides, under the table he hit him in the knee, which has been hurting since the days of the Maidan. “I slapped a man in the face with an open palm who lies and acts vilely... I’m not going to apologize, I acted like a person, like a citizen,” said the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. After a heated discussion, the matter was hushed up.

However, in 2009, a scandal broke out at the international level when Lutsenko, still the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, spent half a day on May 6 at the police station of the German Frankfurt am Main airport. A representative of the Ukrainian government was detained in a state of severe alcoholic intoxication after a clash with local law enforcement officers. Lutsenko and his 19-year-old son were not allowed to board the plane due to clearly inappropriate behavior, after which the family started a fight with swearing and throwing mobile phones. The scale of the performance was such that the shocked police had to call for reinforcements. As a result, the rowdies were neutralized with enormous efforts; Lutsenko Jr.’s alcohol content was recorded at three ppm, but the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs himself avoided the test. The most interesting thing is that in the end, Lutsenko not only did not suffer from the scandal, but even benefited: he spent several weeks of the “investigation”, enjoying his vacation, and at the end of May he returned to his workplace as if nothing had happened.