UKRAINE: WHO'S WHO IN THE TYMOSHENKO GOVERNMENT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 08 KYIV 003102

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E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/20/2017
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR UP
SUBJECT: UKRAINE: WHO'S WHO IN THE TYMOSHENKO GOVERNMENT

Classified By: Pol Counselor Kent Logsdon for reasons 1.4(b,d).


1. (C) Summary. The new Tymoshenko government, confirmed by
the Rada December 18, is an interesting mix of PM Tymoshenko
loyalists and President Yushchenko loyalists, and of
experienced politicians and technocratic newcomers.
Disagreements over Our Ukraine-People's Self Defense slots
between the parliamentary faction and the Presidential
Secretariat held up the vote on Tymoshenko and the Cabinet

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for a week -- Yuriy Yekhanurov, now Defense Minister,
announced at the last minute that he would not vote for
Tymoshenko unless the differences were resolved. The average
age in the new Cabinet is 50. Almost half of the Cabinet is
from western Ukraine, a big difference from previous
Cabinets, but eastern, southern, and central Ukraine are
represented as well; there are even three ministers born in
Russia. Tymoshenko controls the economic portfolios with the
exception of energy, while OU-PSD is in charge of the social
ministries and the President retains his purview over foreign
affairs and defense.


2. (C) Comment. While some of the ministries will be run by
highly-qualified professionals, the fractious nature of the
appointment process is likely to be reflected in the work of
the Cabinet. Both Tymoshenko and Yushchenko chose ministers
who would be personally loyal to them, possibly setting the
stage for a struggle for power reminiscent of Tymoshenko's
first cabinet of 2005. Ironically, the fragility of the
227-member coalition -- which complicated the Tymoshenko
confirmation vote -- may be of some benefit now, as both
sides will have to compromise if they want to accomplish
anything. End summary and comment.

Naming the Cabinet: Not an Easy Task
--------------


3. (SBU) The Cabinet is split 50-50 between ministers
nominated by BYuT and OU-PSD, although not all ministers are
members of one bloc or the other. In general, BYuT controls
the economic portfolios and OU-PSD controls the social and
national security and defense ministries, although BYuT gave
OU-PSD the Agriculture Minister slot in exchange for the a
second deputy prime minister slot for Tymoshenko foreign
policy adviser Hryhoriy Nemyria. There is a third deputy
prime minister slot, for regional policy, that remains
vacant. The press reported the OU-PSD MP Matviyenko, who had
expressed doubt about whether the bloc should support
Tymoshenko becoming PM, was now lobbying for the job, but
Tymoshenko told the press December 18 that she was leaving it
open for the possibility of coalition expansion.


4. (C) Six ministers -- Pavlenko, Pynzenyk, Lutsenko,
Ohryzko, Melnyk, and Krupko -- are returning to positions
they have previously held, while another ten are seasoned
politicians. Six have deep background in their fields, but
have never worked for the government. It seems that within
the BYuT quota, Tymoshenko has aimed for a mix of ardent
loyalists, like Turchynov and Vinskiy, who will protect the
PM, and apolitical technocrats to provide good advice, but
who might also be easier to control. The OU-PSD quota, much
like the faction that named them, is a more motley crew,
representing the various parties within the faction, as well
as the interference of the Presidential Secretariat.
Secretariat Chief Baloha's fingerprints are all over the

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fights over the Education, Justice, and Defense Ministers, as
well as the decision to leave Yuriy Melnyk in as Agriculture
Minster, despite his alleged corruption and anti-WTO stances.

Oleksandr Turchynov: First Deputy Prime Minister (BYuT)
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5. (C) Tymoshenko's right hand man, Turchynov will run all
the economic programs for the government and help manage and
oversee her government's vision. He is a dogged fighter and
will support Tymoshenko in everything she does. In the past
few years, Turchynov has run the Security Service (SBU) and
served as deputy secretary of the National Security and
Defense Council (NSDC) at Tymoshenko's behest, although his
educational and work background over the last 17 years has
been economic and political. While at the SBU in 2005,
Turchynov was allegedly collecting compromising materials on
Yushchenko's closest allies; he resigned from the SBU when
Tymoshenko was fired in September 2005. Turchynov has been
tied to Tymoshenko since the early 1990s, first when he
worked as deputy governor of Dnipropetrovsk under
Tymoshenko's former business partner Pavlo Lazarenko, and
then as co-founder of the political party Hromada in 1993
with Tymoshenko and Lazarenko. Turchynov joined the Rada in
1998, while running Hromada'
s political council, until Lazarenko was arrested in 1998.
Tymoshenko subsequently founded the Batkivshchina party --

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the backbone of BYuT -- which Turchynov helps run; he is also
deputy head of BYuT. Turchynov is an ordained Baptist
Minister. He was born March 31, 1964 in Dnipropetrovsk.

Ivan Vasyunyk: DPM for Humanitarian Affairs (OU-PSD)
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6. (C) Vasyunyk is coming from his post as First Deputy Head
of the Presidential Secretariat. His influence there has
waxed and waned, but recently he was said to be closely
working with Baloha to run OU-PSD's somewhat disastrous
parliamentary campaign this September. In addition, he's
been said to be working on strategies to get Yushchenko
elected to a second term. In the Secretariat, Vasyunyk has
been a key point of contact on our MCC Threshold program, and
is co-chair of the MCC Threshold Program Board. As DPM for
humanitarian affairs, Vasyunyk will have oversight
responsibility for most of the ministries run by OU-PSD
ministers. Vasyunyk is an economist by profession, and has
studied at Harvard and at universities in England and
Germany. After teaching management at the Lviv Management
Institute, which he helped found, Vasyunyk turned to politics
in 2002, when he joined the Rada as part of Our Ukraine. He
was born July 7, 1959 in Lviv oblast.

Hryhoriy Nemyria: DPM for EuroIntegration (BYuT)
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7. (C) Nemyria will have a tough challenge ahead of him in
making his position meaningful. Yushchenko first created a
DPM for EuroIntegration in 2005 for his good friend Oleh
Rybachuk, but it proved difficult to produce results with
ministries such as Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Economy
pursuing European integration policies on their own. The
Cabinet in Ukraine is structured to give each DPM
responsibility for certain ministries, but the previous DPM
for Eurointegration had none and it is hard to see which
ministries Nemyria might take charge of now, since MFA and
MOD fall under the President and most other relevant
institutions are likely to fall under Turchynov's purview.


8. (C) Nemyria's position was a last minute deal within the
coalition, and BYuT had to give OU-PSD the Agricultural
Ministry in exchange for getting agreement on Nemyria.
Nemyria is Tymoshenko's foreign policy adviser and has been
her intermediary for contacts with Western governments, both
in Kyiv and in Europe, which has raised his profile within
the bloc; however, he has not been a very publicly prominent
member of BYuT in the last two years. Prior to joining the
Rada in 2006, Nemyria ran the Soros-financed International
Renaissance Foundation, where he also studied European
integration issues. An academic by training, in the late
1980s and 1990s Nemyria lectured at Donetsk University,
founded the Center for Political Studies, and than served as
deputy rector of the highly-esteemed Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in
Kyiv. He was born April 5, 1960 in Donetsk oblast.

Volodymyr Ohryzko: Foreign Affairs (President)
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9. (C) Deputy Foreign Minister Ohryzko's nomination to be
Minister appears to be a way for Yushchenko to reassert
himself after the Regions-led Rada refused twice to approve
Ohryzko as Foreign Minister in February 2005. Ohryzko was
former FM Tarasyuk's top deputy and personal choice as a
replacement, and we've heard they share some of the same
prickly personality traits. Many say Ohryzko is not well
liked within the Foreign Ministry -- the diplomatic cadre
reportedly was supporting Deputy Minister Khandohiy who also
seemed to have been favored by former FM Yatsenyuk over
Ohryzko. Ohryzko also has a reputation for fierce
anti-Russian views; he stirred up controversy at a conference
in Crimea, when he allegedly requested translation into
Ukrainian of all comments made in Russian.


10. (SBU) Ohryzko is a career diplomat, joining the Foreign
Ministry of the Soviet SSR immediately upon graduation from
Kyiv State University in 1978. He has served in Germany and
Austria, but has spent most of his career in Kyiv. Ohryzko
was born April 1, 1956 in Kyiv.

Yuriy Yekhanurov: Defense (President)
--------------


11. (C) When Yushchenko made the surprise nomination of
Yekhanurov to run the Defense Ministry on December 11,
several MPs told us that they thought Yekhanurov would be the
new "Poroshenko" in the Tymoshenko government, in other words
a close Yushchenko ally whose job was to try to keep
Tymoshenko's ambitions in check -- Petro Poroshenko filled
this role as NSDC Secretary in 2005. Others believed the

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position was the price Yushchenko had to pay to get
Yekhanurov's agreement to sign the coalition agreement --
Yekhanurov acknowledged to the Ambassador that although he
signed the agreement, he still objected to many parts of it,
and it was not clear until the final minute that Yekhanurov
would vote for Tymoshenko.


12. (C) Former NSDC Secretary Horbulin predicted to us that
Yekhanurov would run a tighter ship than his predecessor,
Anatoliy Hrytsenko, with financial/workflow controls
improving. However, he saw Yekhanurov as lacking the
strategic vision that made Hrytsenko an effective reformer
and key supporter of NATO membership. First Deputy Defense
Minister Polyakov told us that he believed it was Baloha's
idea to replace Hrytsenko with Yekhanurov, because the former
was too independent and principled, "not a yes-man", implying
that Yekhanurov will work more hand-in-glove with the
President's team.


13. (C) Yekhanurov has a mixed reputation. He was seen as a
reformist under President Kuchma, but his 11-month tenure as
Prime Minister in 2005-2006 bore mixed results, especially as
he was unable or unwilling to derail the January 2006 gas
deal, which he claimed he opposed. He is, however, respected
by Regions and Lytvyn Bloc, which may have made his
appointment more palatable. In our contacts with him, he
appears to have a strong personal dislike for Tymoshenko, and
has long preferred a broad coalition of Our Ukraine and
Regions. Since serving as First Deputy Prime Minister under
PM Yushchenko in 2000-2001 and then helping run Yushchenko's
successful 2002 Rada and 2004 presidential campaigns,
Yekhanurov has remained close to the President. Yekhanurov
ran the State Property Fund through the mid-1990s, where he
helped guide Ukraine through the early stages of
privatization. He was born August 23, 1948 in Yatkutska,
Russia; he is an ethnic Buryat.

Iosip Vinskiy: Transportatino and Communication (BYuT)
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14. (C) Vinskiy was one of the two Socialist who defected to
BYuT in 2006 after party leader Oleksandr Moroz made his deal
to join Party of Regions in the Anti-Crisis Coalition. Since
then Vinskiy has been a key Tymoshenko ally and insider with
a full-time job at BYuT headquarters. He rarely talks to us
and not often to the press. He was a major participant in
the "Ukraine Without Kuchma" movement in 2001, which is
probably how he got to know Tymoshenko. He has been a Rada
MP sine 1994, always in the Socialist faction, where he
served on a variety of committees. His background is in
agricultural engineering, but he moved into politics in 1981,
working in Ukrainian Communist Party structures and then
joining the newly created Socialist Party in 1991. Vinskiy
was slotted to be a deputy prime minister, and only moved to
the Transportation Ministry on December 17, the day before
the Cabinet was confirmed in the Rada. While MPs we spoke
with agreed that Vinskiy was a better choice than the
original nominee for the job -- automobile magnate Tariel
Vasadze -- they expressed concern that he was not
well-qualified to run the Ministry, which has some serious
issues to tackle. Vinskiy was born January 2, 1956 in
Khmelnitskiy oblast.

Viktor Pynzenyk: Finance (BYuT)
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15. (C) Pynzenyk became close to Tymoshenko when he worked as
Minister of Finance in her 2005 Cabinet, although he remained
in the Yekhanurov Cabinet when she was fired. Pynzenyk
withdrew his Reforms and Order Party (PRP) from the Our
Ukraine bloc in March 2006 in an unsuccessful attempt to run
in the Rada elections with another minor party, Pora, but
later that year PRP formally joined BYuT. He now sits on
BYuT's presidium. Pynzenyk has always had a somewhat
competitive relationship with Yushchenko, as they were both
seen as leading economic reformers in the 1990s. Under
President Kuchma, Pynzenyk was variously Deputy Prime
Minister for economic reform and head of the President's
economic reform council, but it was Yushchenko who was tapped
to be Prime Minister in 2000. Pynzenyk is in charge of both
the new government's budget proposals and its entire
government program, which should be based on the coalition
agreement. Pynzenyk understands market economics and as
Finance Minister was a strong advocate
of budgetary restraint. In our discussions with him, he
comes across as a sincere Ukrainian patriot who worries about
the future of his country. He has two economics degrees from
Lviv University, as well as a doctorate in economics from
Moscow's Lomonosov University. He was born April 15, 1954 in
Zakarpattya oblast.


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Bohdan Danylyshyn: Economy (BYuT)
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16. (C) Danylyshyn is an academic who chairs the Council on
Researching the Productive Forces of Ukraine, an economic
think-tank within the National Academy of Sciences. He is a
professor and a corresponding member of the National Academy
of Sciences, and has written a wide-variety of economics
publications, many focused on municipal and regional
development. Presidential adviser Rybachuk told us that
Industrial Union Donbas (IUD) co-owner Vitaliy Haiduk had
confirmed that Danylyshyn was "his guy"-- the press has
reported this as well; IUD is a behind-the-scenes supporter
of Tymoshenko. The Embassy has worked with Danylyshyn since
2003 on environmental issues, such as Earth Day and the
controversial Danube-Black Sea canal issue. On the latter,
he was one of the few within the GOU to oppose construction
through the fragile Danube Biosphere Reserve. Affable and
receptive to Embassy meeting requests, Danylyshyn struck us
as being an idealist far removed from the world of
policy-making. These sentiments wer
e echoed by several politicians in the Rada, who told us that
Danylyshyn is a nice guy, but has no government experience
and is a weak leader. Danylyshyn was nominated by the
Embassy in 2005 to participate in an IV program on
Sustainable Environmental Policy, but was unable to attend.
He was born June 6, 1965.

Yuriy Melnyk: Agriculture (OU-PSD)
--------------


17. (C) Melnyk is the current minister, having first joined
the Yekhanurov government in late 2005 as Deputy PM for
Agriculture and moving into the AgMin position under PM
Yanukovych in August 2006. When the other orange ministers
resigned, he remained under the Communist quota in the
Cabinet. He has been called a knowledgeable specialist, but
in reality he is seen as a representative of large
agribusiness interests, including his own. Melnyk has been
at times an open opponent of Ukraine's WTO accession, despite
the GOU's clear policy to pursue accession. He went from
academia into the Ag Ministry in 1996, where he has worked in
some capacity ever since. He is generally considered
apolitical. Melnyk has close ties the Ukrainian Poultry
Union (UPU),the most powerful lobby in the Ukrainian
agricultural sector, as well as to Ihor Tarasyuk, co-owner of
the biggest poultry and egg producer in Ukraine. Tarasyuk is
also Director of the Presidential Secretariat's State
Administrative Directorate, which manage
s all property owned by the Presidential Secretariat and NSDC
-- many believe that Tarasyuk got Melnyk his job, and that
UPU might have made a substantial payment to keep Melnyk in
his slot. Melnyk is responsible for implementing policies
that benefit the poultry producers, such as restricting
exports of feed grains to keep prices lower for domestic
firms. He also has implemented administrative measures to
controls prices, while the Veterinary Service under his
Ministry has been reluctant to fulfill WTO commitments
(including to the U.S.) to open Ukraine's markets for meat.
Melnyk was born August 5, 1962 in Cherkasy oblast.

Vasyl Knyazevych: Health (OU-PSD)
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18. (C) Knyazevych, uncle of OU-PSD MP Ruslan, has been
President Yushchenko's chief doctor since 2005. In November
2006, he was also appointed Head of the Medical Department of
the State Affairs Administration. He started his career as a
physician at a district hospital in Ternopil oblast. He
later served as Chief of the Health Protection Department in
the Ternopil Oblast Administration, where he earned a
reputation as Western-leaning and open-minded, but also as a
poor manager, while participating in a USAID health reform
project. Knyazevych is rumored to have strong ties to Petro
Bahriy, the head of a local pharmaceutical association, and
was supposedly responsible for directing drug and equipment
procurement contracts to Bahriy during the construction of
First Lady Kateryna Yushchenko's "Hospital of the Future",
which was built on land under Knyazevych's authority while
serving in the State Affairs Administration. He was born in
March, 1956 in Ivano-Frankivsk.

Yuriy Lutsenko: Interior (OU-PSD)
--------------


19. (C) Lutsenko is returning to the Ministry that he ran
from February 2005 until he was pushed out of office in
December 2006. He had been trying to implement reforms in a
deeply troubled and corrupt ministry, and received decent
marks for his efforts, although his lack of law enforcement
background hampered his conceptual understanding of what

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reforms were needed. If he were, however, to be put at the
Ministry's helm for a long period of time and surround
himself with European-oriented professionals, it is
conceivable that some of the necessary reforms would take
hold in this 300,000-man institution. However, Lutsenko is
unlikely to be there long enough to institute deep change
given that he also harbors the desire to become mayor of
Kyiv, which he sees as a good jumping-off point to run for
President in 2010.


20. (C) Lutsenko was a field commander during the Orange
Revolution, and has been loyal to Yushchenko ever since,
although he remained a leader in the Socialist party until
Moroz agreed to go into coalition with Party of Regions and
the Communists in 2006. Lutsenko remained in the Yanukovych
government at Yushchenko's behest in August 2006, but the
Regions-led majority in the Rada and government attacked
Lutsenko, ordering raids of his home and the homes of
Lutsenko's allies, leaking accusations of corruption, and
finally firing him on December 1, 2006. Lutsenko began his
own political movement, People's Self-Defense, in early 2007,
but has told us numerous times that the September Rada
elections came too soon for him to be able to turn it into a
real political force, forcing him to join Our Ukraine.
There are rumors that Lutsenko is a hard drinker, although we
have never seen him act other than professionally. Lutsenko
was born December 14, 1964 in Rivne.

Mykola Onishchuk: Justice (OU-PSD)
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21. (C) Onishchuk's candidacy to be Justice Minister was a
major roadblock to final agreement on the Cabinet slate, with
many in OU-PSD outraged over his selection to be part of
their quota; the decision presumably was made by the
Presidential Secretariat. The main objection we heard from
MPs was that Onishchuk had been a hold-out in agreeing to
sign the orange coalition agreement and to support
Tymoshenko, and that he should not be rewarded for
"blackmailing" the bloc. In addition, he supposedly worked
in 2004 with then Presidential Administration Head Medvedchuk
to find a legal justification for giving President Kuchma a
third term in office, and leading member of OU, Roman
Zvarych, also wanted the Minister position. However, in the
end, the OU-PSD faction dropped its objections to Onishchuk.


22. (C) Onishchuk has chaired since August, 2007 the National
Commission for Strengthening Democracy and Rule of Law --
charged with law enforcement and judicial reform -- where we
have found him to be knowledgeable, open to new ideas,
politically-astute, and a consensus-builder. He is openly
and avidly pro-European. Although a lawyer by profession, he
is not well-versed in criminal law, but made good use of
allies and experts to make some important steps forward. He
graduated from the law department at Kyiv Shevchenko
University. Then Onishchuk became the 1st Deputy Head of the
Lawyer's Association, under infamous lawyer and Presidential
Administration Head Medvedchuk. A longtime member of the
Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of Ukraine (PIEU),
Onishchuk also worked as an adviser to party leader Anatoliy
Kinakh, when the latter was PM in 2001-2002. When PIEU
defected from Our Ukraine to the Anti-Crisis Coalition in
March 2007, Onishchuk remained in OU. He graduated from the
law department at
Kyiv Shevchenko University. In the 1990s, he worked for a
private law firm. He was born October 26, 1957 in Zhytomyr
oblast.

Ivan Vakarchuk: Education (OU-PSD)
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23. (C) Vakarchuk, Rector of Lviv University and father of
OU-PSD MP Slava Vakarchuk (Okean Elzy lead singer),was one
of the hardest fought-for appointees in the Cabinet. Almost
unanimously backed by the OU-PSD faction, the Presidential
Secretariat had demanded the appointment of Vasyl Kremen as

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Education Minister. Although Kremen is known as one of the
preeminent education experts in the country, he was also a
member of the odious Social Democratic Party (united) and
served as Education Minister under the first Yanukovych
government, where he used his financial resources and
position to unfairly campaign for Yanukovych for president in

2004. However, Kremen's nomination faced so many objections,
the Presidential Secretariat gave their approval to Vakarchuk
on December 18, which allowed the Cabinet vote to go forward.



24. (C) At Lviv University, Vakarchuk was originally very
popular, but we have heard complaints recently that he has
become less democratic and more authoritarian policy in
setting university policy. He has been good in his oversight

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of successful partnership programs between Lviv University
and University of Oregon, Eugene, and Kansas University. We
are hopeful that his appointment will bring positive changes
to the Ministry, which is currently very conservative.
Vakarchuk was born March 6, 1947 in Moldova, but has spent
most of his life in Lviv.

Yuriy Prodan: Fuel and Energy (OU-PSD)
--------------


25. (C) Although Prodan is coming to the Cabinet from a
position as Deputy Secretary of the NSDC, the bulk of his
career has been in the energy sector. An electrical engineer
by training, he has worked in various capacities at
Kyivenergo and Ukrenego, both electricity generators, run
Energorynok, the state enterprise that manages Ukraine's
electricity market, and served as First Deputy Fuel Minister
(2005-2006). Prodan also has a long and favorable track
record as regulator of the National Electricity Regulation
Commission (NERC),from 2001-2004. In his most recent
government position at the NSDC, Prodan openly criticized
Energy Minister Yuriy Boyko for his plans for Ukraine's
energy market, which Prodan felt were thinly disguised
attempts to privatize Ukraine's strategic energy assets.
Unlike Boyko, Prodan does not have direct ties to the
lucrative gas and oil industries, which might enable him to
take on vested interests that currently dominate those
sectors. Prodan has a reportedly excellent working re
lationship with Tymoshenko, and is considered to be extremely
loyal to the President. Local newspapers have dubbed Prodan
as the Presidential Secretariat's "Man," due to Prodan's
pro-presidential stance. He was educated at Kyiv Polytechnic
Institute, considered one of the best institutions of higher
learning in Ukraine. Prodan was born January 27, 1959 in
Norilsk, Russia.

Vasyl Vovkun: Culture and Tourism (OU-PSD)
--------------


26. (SBU) Vovkun is a distinguished director and screenwriter
from Lviv. Although Vovkun directed Yushchenko's
presidential inauguration in 2005 and has run the official
Independence Day celebrations for the past three years, he
has turned down offers from Yushchenko to become a
presidential adviser. He has been quoted in the press as
saying that he "took part in the Orange Revolution as a
conscientious citizen without expecting ... rewards from the
victors," and that he felt great about not having succumbed
to the temptation to become a high-ranking bureaucrat.
Vovkun was born June 14, 1957 in Lviv.

Volodymyr Shandra: Emergency Situations (OU-PSD)
-------------- ---


27. (C) Shandra, who previously served as Minister of
Industrial Policy under Tymoshenko and Yekhanurov, reportedly
received his new position because he is the uncle of
Yushchenko's son-in-law. The Ministry of Emergency
Situations is often a desired position, because it has such a
large budget. After completing his studies at the nuclear
power plants department of Moscow Engineering Institute in
1987, Shandra went to work at the Khmelnitskiy power plant.
In the 1990s, Shandra worked as a private entrepreneur and
then ran a firm that produced roofing insulation materials.
He only entered politics in 2002, when he joined the Rada as
part of the OU faction. Shandra was born January 11, 1963 in
Ternopil oblast.

Yuriy Pavlenko: Youth, Sports, and Family (OU-PSD)
-------------- --------------


28. (C) At 32, Pavlenko is a rising star in Our Ukraine. He
is returning to the Ministry he ran from February 2005 until
October 2007, when he resigned along with the rest of the
orange ministers in the Yanukovych government. Pavlenko then
accepted the governorship of Zhytomyr oblast, but we heard
that he was unhappy being out of Kyiv politics, and we saw
him periodically hanging out with friends at the Rada.
Pavlenko was number 7 on OU-PSD's electoral list in the
pre-term elections as part of an effort to get younger faces
out in front of the campaign. In his previous tenure as
minister, he was very helpful to us in solving problems
regarding foreign adoptions and in increasing the Ministry's
actions with regards to combating trafficking-in-persons.
His staff told us that he has a genuine desire to understand
the issues and was willing to invest the time to learn.
However, they said his youth and political inexperience last
time limited his ability to really take charge of many of the
issues in his por
tfolio, which cross ministerial lines. During the 2004
presidential campaign, he ran Yushchenko's Donetsk

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headquarters. Pavlenko has degrees in history and public
administration. His brother-in-law is Ruslan Knyazevych,
also a young star in Our Ukraine and whose uncle is the new
Minister of Health. He was born March 20, 1975 in Kyiv.

Volodymyr Novitskiy: Industrial Policy (BYuT)
--------------


29. (SBU) Novitskiy has worked in his field for a long time.
From 1992-1995 he was a Deputy Industrial Policy Minister.
He spent four years in Moscow, working on an economic policy
committee for the CIS. In 2000-2001, he returned to Kyiv and
led the State Committee for Industrial Policy. Then he
served as Deputy Industrial Policy Minister in 2003-2005, and
was reappointed deputy minister since 2006. He holds a PhD
in technical science, specializing in the processing of oil
and gas. He was born September 9, 1947 in Khmelnitskiy
oblast.

Vasyl Kuybida: Regional Development and Building (OU-PSD)
-------------- --------------


30. (C) Kuybida served as mayor of Lviv from 1994-2002, where
he was very popular. He worked with the National Democratic
Institute to develop a strategic development plan for the
city; NDI reported that although he listed carefully to
consultants and set up a task force, he never followed
through on the recommendations. He has an antagonistic
relationship with current Lviv Mayor Sadoviy, who accused
Kuybida of corruption related to land sales and
privatizations. Kuybida comes off as a "please everybody"
type, who has succeeded well under both Kuchma and
Yushchenko. He was vice president of both the Local and
Regional Congress of Europe and the Ukrainian Association of
Cities. Borys Tarasyuk, leader of Rukh -- one of the
constituent parties in the OU-PSD bloc -- told us that
Kuybida was the only minister from Rukh on the OU-PSD quota
in the Cabinet. Kuybida's official bio on the web reports
that he served as vice President of MAUP, the commuter
college known for its dissemination of anti-Semitic informa
tion, from 2002-2005, a position created especially for him.
Kuybida studied applied mathematics at Ivan Franko University
in Lviv and also at the National Institute for Governance and
Self-Defense. He was born into a family of political
prisoners in Komi, Russia May 8, 1958.

Oleksiy Kucherenko: Housing and Utilities (OU-PSD)
-------------- --------------


31. (SBU) Kucherenko, a longtime MP from OU, most recently
served as the head of a subcommittee on the Rada committee
for Housing and Communal Services. He was first elected to
the Rada in 1998, but left in 2000 to become governor of
Zaporizhzhya. He then went into private business, returning
to the government in 2005 as a member of the State Committee
for Housing and Utilities. He rejoined the Rada in 2006 as a
member of OU. Kucherenko holds degrees in information
technology and public administration. Kucherenko was born
April 3, 1961 in Vinnitsya, although he grew up in Poltava.

Viktor Poltavets: Coal Industry (BYuT)
--------------


32. (SBU) Poltavets currently heads the Luhansk Giproshakht
state enterprise after previously serving as Minister of Coal
Industry during Soviet times. Poltavets began as a low level
mine worker, working his way up to coal mine director, then
director of several larger coal mining concerns. Poltavets
is politically unaffiliated. He was born in 1937 in Luhansk
oblast, and at 70 is the cabinet's oldest member.

Hryhoriy Filipchuk: Environment (BYuT)
--------------


33. (SBU) Filipchuk appears to have almost no background in
ecological issues, and seems to have received his position
because he was the head of Tymoshenko's campaign headquarters
for Vinnitsya Oblast in the last elections. By profession,
he was a history teacher, who went into education management
and then politics. He had a seat in the Rada from 1994-2002,
while concurrently serving as governor of Chernivtsi from
1996-1998. His one brush with environmental issues was as
Chairman of the Rada Environmental Policy Committee in
1997-1998. After leaving the Rada, Filipchuk went back to
education issues, working at the Ministry and then serving as
the General Director of the Ukrainian National Center for
Standards and Certification in 2005. Filipchuk was born
December 19, 1950 in Chernivtsi oblast.

Petro Krupko: Cabinet of Ministers (BYuT)
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34. (SBU) Krupko held the same post under Tymoshenko's
previous government in 2005; when the government collapsed,
he moved to become First Deputy Justice Minister. Krupko
headed the Cabinet of Minister's legal department in 1996
under PM Lazarenko, and was Deputy Minister of the Cabinet
when Yushchenko was PM in 2000. In that latter position,
Krupko drafted the constitutional amendments that President
Kuchma later put to referendum. He was elected to the Rada
for the first time in 2007, on the BYuT list. Tymoshenko has
publicly dubbed Krupko as the ideal minister. In his first
tour as minister, we found Krupko helpful on investment
dispute issues. Krupko was born March 5, 1958.

Lyudmila Denisova: Labor and Social Policy (BYuT)
-------------- --------------


35. (SBU) Denisova was the former Minister of Finance for
Crimea who was briefly detained and arrested in 2000 for
"abuse of authority" while carrying out her mandate. The
matter was quickly closed, and Denisova became a strident
critic of both the Prosecutor's Office and Tax Authorities,
regularly criticizing them for ruining Ukraine's financial
system. Denisova also served on the Labor and Social policy
Committee in the Crimean Rada and has a degree in this field.
Tymoshenko introduced her as the leader in the fight for
pension reform, a key plank in Tymoshenko's election
campaign. Denisova is 47 years old.


36. (U) Visit Embassy Kyiv's classified website:
www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/kiev.
Taylor