Sergei Bondarchuk
Biography of Sergei Bondarchuk
Date of Birth: 31.10.1971
Sergei Vasilyevich Bondarchuk - former chairman of the Political Council of 'Our Ukraine', former general director of GC 'Ukrspetsexport'.
Education. Graduated from the Kiev Military Higher Command School named after M. Frunze.
Career. He held the position of deputy head of the Council of the 'Energy Equipment' concern, of the Kharkiv tank plant named after Malyshev. He lived in Kyiv.
2002-2005 - People's Deputy of Ukraine of the IV convocation. He was elected in the constituency of the Volyn Region as a candidate of Viktor Yushchenko's 'Our Ukraine' bloc. He worked in the Committee of the Verkhovna Rada on budget issues.
On March 23, 2005, he was appointed by a decree of President Yushchenko as the general director of the state enterprise for the export and import of military and special-purpose products and services 'Ukrspetsexport'. On June 10, 2010, he was dismissed by a decree of President Viktor Yanukovych.
2011-2012 - Chairman of the Political Council of the 'Our Ukraine' party.
Views and assessments. During his work in Parliament, Bondarchuk changed deputy associations several times. After the 'Our Ukraine' faction, in which he was exactly two weeks, he was a member of the 'European Choice' and 'Center' groups. He ended his term in the faction of the People's Party of Vladimir Lytvyn.
During the 2004 presidential election campaign, he was the liaison for opposition candidate Yushchenko in his constituency in Volyn.
Since 2002, he was part of two temporary investigation committees of the parliament to verify the authenticity of the facts of illegal arms sales from Ukraine to foreign states. In particular, he dealt with the investigation of the scandal regarding the sale of 'Kolchuga' complexes to Iran, which was subject to international sanctions. This scandal seriously undermined the image of then-President Leonid Kuchma, as did the Gongadze case.
In August 2008, opponents of President Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko accused 'Ukrspetsexport', which Bondarchuk headed, of illegally supplying weapons to the official government in Tbilisi during the armed Georgian-Ossetian conflict.
Later, the political opposition of the current government tried to accuse 'Ukrspetsexport' of illegal shipments of tanks and other weapons to Africa, which were discovered by pirates on the ship 'Faina' captured off the coast of Somalia. The head of the state enterprise was confident that the subsequent allegations against Ukraine for smuggling weapons were based on a competition in the global arms market and indicated that Ukraine was successfully establishing itself in this market.
According to Bondarchuk, Ukraine's arms exports in 2007 amounted to about $700 million.
Criminal proceedings. The Main Military Prosecutor's Office suspects Bondarchuk of stealing more than $7 million in budget funds. In February 2016, he was declared wanted, first by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, then also by Interpol. In July 2018, the court in the United Kingdom granted Sergei Bondarchuk political asylum.
25.10.2023