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Oleh Voloshyn (politician)

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Oleh Voloshyn
Олег Анатолійович Волошин
People's Deputy of Ukraine
In office
25 August 2019 – 24 February 2023
Personal details
Born
Oleh Anatoliiovych Voloshyn

(1981-04-07) 7 April 1981 (age 43)
Mykolaiv, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
CitizenshipUkraine
NationalityUkrainian
Political partyOpposition Platform — For Life
Alma materInstitute of International Relations at Taras Shevchenko University [uk]
Known forFormer spokesperson for a department of the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine

Oleh Anatoliiovych Voloshyn (Ukrainian: Олег Анатолійович Волошин, Russian: Олег Анатольевич Волошин, romanized: Oleg Anatolyevich Voloshyn; born 7 April 1981, Mykolaiv) is a Russian-Ukrainian journalist, political pundit on 112 Ukraine, politician, and former government official under Ukrainian prime ministers Mykola Azarov and Viktor Yanukovych. He was a presidential attaché in the former Embassy of Ukraine in Moscow, Russia. He was the spokesman and director for the Information Department of the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine from 2010 to 2013.[1] He was a people's deputy of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, elected in the elections in 2019, until his mandate was, at his own request, revoked in February 2023.[2][3][4][5]

In February 2023 Voloshyn was formally accused of state treason for he allegedly "promoted the military-political leadership of the Russian Federation in subversive activities against Ukraine."[6]

Biography

[edit]

Voloshyn graduated from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv's Institute of International Relations in 2003. From 2005 to 2008 he had a journalistic career.[3]

From 2008 to 2019 Voloshyn was a presidential attaché in the former Embassy of Ukraine in Moscow, Russia.[3]

From 2010 to 2013 Voloshyn was the Director of the Information Policy Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.[3]

In the 2015 Kyiv local election, as a candidate for Opposition Bloc, Voloshyn failed to win a seat in the Kyiv city council.[1] Opposition Bloc failed to overcome the election threshold.[1]

In 2015 Voloshin became a journalist of Vesti. Reporter [uk].[3]

Voloshin is alleged to have been a Ukrainian business partner of Paul Manafort and to have ties to Russian intelligence agencies; prosecutors in the 2017 Special Counsel investigation, led by former director of the FBI Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, alleged that he and Manafort had worked on an op-ed piece in the Kyiv Post praising Manafort's efforts in strengthening European Union–Ukraine relations while Manafort was out on bail, which prosecutors claim was written in order to boost public opinion of Manafort in Ukraine.[7] Voloshyn, however, claims that he wrote the op-ed piece, emailing a version of the rough draft of the op-ed to colleague Konstantin Kilimnik.[8] As a result, in early December 2017, a court filing requested that the judge revoke Manafort's bond agreement.[9][10]

On 20 June 2019, it was announced that Voloshyn would be on the electoral list of the Opposition Platform — For life party for the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election.[11] He was elected into the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) in this election as number 30 on the party list.[5] At the time Voloshyn worked for the Ukrainian TV channel 112 Ukraine.[12]

As a political pundit, he has made claims that there is a "growing volume of obvious violations of the rights of journalists, opposition, religious organizations, national minorities." He considers himself a defender of the Russian language in Ukraine.[13] On the Russian military intervention in Ukraine, he has stated that "the Russian Federation is struggling to hold Ukraine in its sphere of influence, and not for its transformation into another province [of Russia]" and argues that "in Russia there was no overall goal to occupy Ukraine", that in general, "Ukraine is now governed by Washington."[14]

In July 2020 Voloshyn was doused with a green liquid close to the Verkhovna Rada building after claiming in parliament that Ukraine could not retake sovereignty over Russian annexed Crimea given that (according to Voloshyn) Ukraine was "given entirely to external governance."[6] At the time fellow MPs addressed the head of the Ukrainian secret service Ivan Bakanov with a demand to initiate criminal proceedings (against Voloshyn).[6]

U.S. investigation and sanctions

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In July 2021, upon his arrival in the U.S., he was pulled away at Dulles International Airport by FBI agents for a three-hour long questioning session; according to Voloshyn, the agents also extracted the information from his cellphone.[15]

On 20 January 2022, against the backdrop of mounting tensions over Ukraine, the U.S. government imposed sanctions on Voloshyn along with three other Ukrainian nationals. The statement released by the U.S. Department of the Treasury said, "Russia has directed its intelligence services to recruit current and former Ukrainian government officials to prepare to take over the government of Ukraine and to control Ukraine’s critical infrastructure with an occupying Russian force. At the heart of this effort are Taras Kozak (Kozak) and Oleh Voloshyn (Voloshyn), two current Ukrainian Members of Parliament from the party led by Victor Medvedchuk (Medvedchuk), who is already subject to U.S. sanctions for his role in undermining Ukrainian sovereignty in 2014. Medvedchuk maintains close ties with the Kremlin, and also took part in directing these activities. [...] Voloshyn has worked with Russian actors to undermine Ukrainian government officials and advocate on behalf of Russia. Voloshyn also worked with U.S.-designated Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian national with ties to Russian intelligence who was sanctioned for attempts to influence the U.S. 2020 presidential election, to coordinate passing on information to influence U.S. elections at the behest of Russia."[16]

Sanctioned by Canada on 24 February 2022 and by the UK government on 24 March 2022 in relation to Russo-Ukrainian War. [17][18]

State treason accusation and lost parliamentary seat

[edit]

Voloyshyn left Ukraine 10 days before the 24 February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.[19] According to the Ukrainian newspaper Lb.ua [uk] Voloyshyn has Russian citizenship.[3][20]

In April 2022 it was announced that Voloyshyn had joined the parliamentary faction Platform for Life and Peace after the party he was elected in parliament for, Opposition Platform — For Life, had been banned.[1]

In January 2023 Voloshyn officially requested to be realised of his parliamentary mandate.[3]

On 10 February 2023 Voloshyn was formally accused of state treason for he allegedly "promoted the military-political leadership of the Russian Federation in subversive activities against Ukraine."[6] According to the Ukrainian secret service (SBU) he had been involved in manipulating Ukraine's public opinion in the interests of Russia through speeches and interviews.[6] According to the SBU Voloshyn was "hiding abroad" when the indicment was published.[6]

Voloshyn's parliamentary mandate was revoked on 24 February 2023.[2]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d Small biography on Oleh Voloshyn, Civil movement "Chesno" (in Ukrainian)
  2. ^ a b "The Verkhovna Rada took the mandates from three more Natdeps". Ukrainska Pravda (in Ukrainian). 24 February 2023. Retrieved 24 February 2023.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g "Biography of Oleh Voloshyn". Lb.ua [uk] (in Ukrainian). 24 February 2023. Retrieved 24 February 2023.
  4. ^ "Олег Волошин — DSnews.ua". www.dsnews.ua (in Russian). 2022-01-19. Retrieved 2023-01-23.
  5. ^ a b CEC counts 100 percent of vote in Ukraine's parliamentary elections, Ukrinform (26 July 2019)
    (in Russian) Results of the extraordinary elections of the People's Deputies of Ukraine 2019, Ukrayinska Pravda (21 July 2019)
  6. ^ a b c d e f (in Ukrainian) National Deputy of from OPFL Voloshin is suspected of state treason, Ukrainska Pravda (10 February 2023)
  7. ^ Polityuk, Pavel; Lynch, Sarah (2017-12-07). "Paul Manafort, Special Counsel Mueller tussle over Ukrainian op-ed". Reuters. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2017-12-17.
  8. ^ Helderman, Rosalind S. (2017-12-05). "Ukrainian pundit says Paul Manafort did not 'ghostwrite' his pro-Manafort opinion piece". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2017-12-17.
  9. ^ Polantz, Katelyn. "Manafort worked on op-ed with Russian while out on bail, prosecutors say". CNN. Retrieved 2017-12-17.
  10. ^ "Mueller just abruptly reversed course on his bail agreement with Manafort". Business Insider. Retrieved 2017-12-17.
  11. ^ Виборчий список. Політична партія "ОПОЗИЦІЙНА ПЛАТФОРМА – ЗА ЖИТТЯ" Archived 2021-11-10 at the Wayback Machine (in Ukrainian)
  12. ^ "Faction of the "Opposition Platform" – For life "in the new Council: list of people's deputies". Segodnya (in Ukrainian). 26 July 2019. Retrieved 24 February 2023.
  13. ^ Украина стала "больным человеком Европы". 9.12.2017
  14. ^ Олег Волошин: Украиной сегодня управляют из Вашингтона
  15. ^ Shuster, Simon (2 February 2021). "The Untold Story of the Ukraine Crisis". Time. Retrieved 13 February 2022. Oleh Voloshyn, a prominent member of Medvedchuk's party, was greeted by the FBI when he arrived in Washington last July. Two agents approached him at Dulles International Airport and asked to have a word in private, away from his wife and infant son, who were traveling with him. Voloshyn, who serves as Medvedchuk's envoy in the West, spent the next three hours answering the agents' questions. "They took my cell phone," Voloshyn told me of the incident, which has not been previously reported. "And they took all the information from my cell phone."
  16. ^ "Treasury Sanctions Russian-Backed Actors Responsible for Destabilization Activities in Ukraine". treasury.gov (Press release). January 20, 2022. Retrieved January 20, 2022.
  17. ^ "CONSOLIDATED LIST OF FINANCIAL SANCTIONS TARGETS IN THE UK" (PDF). Retrieved 16 April 2023.
  18. ^ "Sanctions – Russian invasion of Ukraine". 4 February 2022. Retrieved 28 October 2023.
  19. ^ "СМИ: еще четырех депутатов Рады от ОПЗЖ лишат мандатов". Коммерсантъ (in Russian). 2023-01-23. Retrieved 2023-01-23.
  20. ^ "СМИ: еще четырех депутатов Рады от ОПЗЖ лишат мандатов". Kommersant (in Russian). 2023-01-23. Retrieved 2023-01-23.
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