Michael Brodsky

Date of Birth: 05.04.1959

Place of Birth. Education. Born in Kyiv. In 1978 he graduated from the Kyiv Technical Institute of Transport Construction as a civil engineer. In 1996, he received a degree in economics from the Institute of Market Economy and Entrepreneurship of the International Center 'Market'.

Business and Political Career. Brodsky began his professional career as a technician in the Kyiv Assembly and Commissioning Management. From 1986 to 1989, he worked as a senior engineer and head of the economic department of the Trust Kievbytremstroy. From 1989 to 1991, he was the deputy head of the procurement management of the production and housing repair combine of the Kyiv City Council.

After the collapse of the USSR, Brodsky began to travel for business. Initially, he headed the MP 'Tompo'. Later, he became the president of the Dendi group (which included a bank of the same name, which led to Brodsky having problems with depositors and law enforcement in the second half of the 1990s) and chairman of the board of the Kyiv Newspapers Publishing House. From 1994 to 1998, he was a deputy of the Pechersk District Council of Kyiv.

In 1998, Brodsky, who won in one of the city's constituencies, became a deputy of the Ukrainian parliament, a member of the parliamentary committee for the fight against corruption and organized crime (later he headed the committee on industrial and entrepreneurial issues). In 1999, he became the deputy chairman of the Yabloko party, which he had helped to found. In 2000, he became the deputy chairman of the Yabloko faction in parliament and two years later its chairman.

In 2002, Brodsky and his Yabloko party, which positioned itself as a middle-class party, lost the parliamentary elections. Their results were also unimpressive in the presidential election campaign of 2004. Nevertheless, he remained in the spotlight all the time, even outside parliament. This was partly due to his elegance in his statements, which even allowed him to compete with the former head of civil defense Nestor Shufrich for the right to be called the 'Ukrainian Zhirinovsky.' And thanks to his chosen role as a permanent fighter. 'I fought against Kravchenko, Kuchma, Omelchenko, Yushchenko, now against Chernetsky...', Brodsky said.

Despite the political failures that followed the politician during elections, he did not stop participating in them. Thus, in the first round of the presidential elections of 2010, Brodsky took second place from last.

On March 24, 2010, Brodsky was appointed by the Cabinet of Ministers of Mykola Azarov as the chairman of the State Committee for Regulatory Policy and Entrepreneurship. At the end of 2010, this position was abolished as part of administrative reform, and on February 14, 2011, he was dismissed by the president. On that day, the Cabinet appointed him as the government representative for deregulating economic activities.

On December 21, 2011, Brodsky was appointed by a decree of President Viktor Yanukovych as the head of the State Service for Regulatory Policy and the Development of Entrepreneurship in Ukraine. He was dismissed from this position under the law 'On the Cleansing of Power' in accordance with a government decree of October 16, 2014.

Current Business and Political Affairs. Brodsky is a businessman, director-advisor of LLC 'Veneto', known for its mattresses. He was a member of the Kyiv City Council. In the spring of 2006, the politician re-entered the legislature of the Ukrainian capital through the list of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc. In the last two years, he worked closely with this political force - so closely that in April 2005 he was included in the political council of the Tymoshenko Batkivshchyna and shortly thereafter in the leadership of the BYuT election staff. During the election campaign, many expected the politician's name to appear on the parliamentary list of the bloc, which did not happen. Brodsky himself said he declined in order to have the moral right to prevent the appearance of people with dubious reputations on the list (for example, Alexander Volkov, a former associate of Leonid Kuchma). According to another version, Brodsky's candidacy was too controversial.

In the Kyiv City Council, Brodsky was a member of the permanent committee on industry, entrepreneurship, and regulatory policy. However, his main concern was his fierce and sometimes scandalous (sometimes at the brink of failure) opposition to Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky, City Council member Oles Dovgy, and their supporters. When speaking about the opposing team, the tireless opponent does not hesitate in his statements. 'Yes, he (the voters, - ed.) washed their brains! Let us tell the truth: Chernovetsky was supported by the city's plebeians, while normal people, the middle class, are horrified! Now it turns out: I am engaged in politics, others are engaged in theft. That is our difference. How do I differ from Chernovetsky? Chernovetsky constantly lies, I state that and fight against it,' says the irreconcilable oppositionist.

Since December 2006, the politician has been fighting his opponents as a former member of the BYuT faction. Brodsky left the faction and stated that he disagreed with the pro-fairytale position of many of his colleagues. In the spring of 2007, he finally broke with the BYuT and its leader Yulia Tymoshenko, accusing her of various 'deadly' sins: selling places on the electoral lists of the bloc, attempting to bribe judges of the Constitutional Court during the political high-speed conflict between President Viktor Yushchenko and the ruling coalition, supporting early elections to allow for the sale of places on the BYuT lists, etc.

In politics, it was not the first time for Brodsky to terminate official alliances or informal partnerships. He once broke with the SDPU(o), which included Yabloko candidates, and quarreled with Our Ukraine, which he was supposed to join. In May 2007, he renounced the name of his own party Yabloko. Brodsky's new baby is called the Party of Free Democrats. Five deputies - members of the BYuT faction, who refused to write statements about the resignation of their deputy mandates, joined it, which was a formal reason for the dissolution of the Verkhovna Rada of the V convocation. In the early parliamentary elections, the party decided to run independently, without forming a bloc. The result was disappointing: 0.21% of the votes - 12th place out of 20 possible.

After the early elections to the Kyiv City Council in May 2008, the politician lost his mandate in the legislature of the capital.

Since September 2008, Brodsky, owner of the basketball club 'Cherkaski Mavpi', has been the president of the newly founded Ukrainian Basketball League.

Together with the deputy of the Opposition Bloc Nestor Shufrich, Brodsky became the new owner of the building of the Kyiv Railway Center. The railway center is owned by the JSC 'Kyiv River Port', whose director is his son Yuri.

He also owns the TV channel Obos TV and the website Obosrevatel, which he claims is a profitable business project. One of his business partners is the former head of the State Fiscal Service (GFS) Roman Nasirov. Since early 2018, Nasirov has begun to finance the Obozrevatel website and the Obos TV channel from Brodsky.

Family. Brodsky is married. He has two sons - Rostyslav (born in 1980) and Yuri (born in 1986), and a daughter Anna (born in 2004).

01.04.2022