Kuzmuk Oleksandr
Biography of Oleksandr Kuzmuk
Date of Birth: 17.04.1954
Place of Birth. Education. Born in Slavuta, Khmelnytskyi region. In 1975, he graduated from the Kharkiv Higher Tank Command School, in 1983 - the Military Academy of Armored Forces, and in 1998 - the Academy of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The obtained specialty is the formation and unification of the Armed Forces, the qualification is a master of state military management. Candidate of military sciences.
Career. From 1975 to 1990, he served in the Armed Forces of the USSR in positions such as tank platoon commander, company commander, battalion commander, deputy chief of regiment staff, chief of regiment staff, regiment commander, and deputy division commander. From 1990 to 1995, he was the chief of staff - deputy division commander, division commander, and commander of the army corps. In 1995, he headed the National Guard of Ukraine.
From 1996 to 2001, Kuzmuk served his first term as Minister of Defense of Ukraine. In 1998, he was given the rank of Army General. From 2002 to 2006, he was a member of the Ukrainian parliament, a member of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security and Defense. During this period - from 2004 to 2005 - he was the head of the defense department for the second time, while retaining his parliamentary mandate. In the 2006 elections, he unsuccessfully tried to enter the parliament under No. 3 of the Revival Party, created by the now-deceased former head of Ukrzaliznytsia and ex-Minister of Transport Georgiy Kirpa.
On May 25, 2007, Kuzmuk became a member of the Ukrainian government for the third time. The Anti-Crisis Coalition approved his appointment as Deputy Prime Minister, curator of law enforcement activities. Before that, the parliament accepted the resignation of Volodymyr Radchenko, who, according to the official narrative, faced a relapse of an old illness. Unofficially, it was said that he did not become an active and effective player in Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych's team in the fight against President Viktor Yushchenko (in particular, against the dissolution of the Verkhovna Rada of the 5th convocation). Some observers believed that Kuzmuk was brought into the government as a counter to the pro-presidential Minister of Defense Anatoliy Hrytsenko - as a person who 'in case of necessity' could influence the army generals.
Following the results of the early 2007 elections, he became a member of the Ukrainian parliament of the 6th convocation listed with the Party of Regions.
From December 2012 to November 2014, he was a member of the Ukrainian parliament of the 7th convocation under No. 43 of the Party of Regions list. Member of the Committee on National Security and Defense. In February 2014, he left the Party of Regions faction.
On March 25, 2014, Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov appointed Kuzmuk as an adviser to the head of state on defense issues.
On October 26, 2014 in the elections to the Verkhovna Rada he did not succeed in entering the parliament, taking 3rd place in the single-member electoral constituency No. 38 in the Dnipropetrovsk region and gaining 12.7% of the votes.
On October 15, 2019, President Volodymyr Zelensky relieved Oleksandr Kuzmuk from military service due to age with the right to wear a military uniform.
Awards and Titles. Among the awards of the soldier and politician are the Orders of 'Bohdan Khmelnytsky' I, II, and III degrees and Danylo Halytsky, 15 medals, 9 orders, and badges of other states, and a personalized firearm. Laureate of the State Prize of Ukraine in the field of science and technology in 1999.
Views. As one of the highest-ranking military officials in Ukraine, Kuzmuk believed that the time of neutral states had passed and that NATO is 'an objective stabilizing force in the world'. At the same time, in an interview with CN - Capital News, the general said: 'There is a difference between 'joining' or 'moving towards'. I am more inclined to move towards Euro-Atlantic integration and NATO, not excluding future membership and equal partnership'.
Recalling the days of the Maidan, Kuzmuk insisted: 'I can say that it is grossly false that someone was saving Ukraine from internal troops, who had already loaded cartridges into the chambers and were going to disperse the 'Orange Revolution' with automatic weapons. It is grossly, disgustingly false. The troops (formations of the Armed Forces, - ed.) were not reinforced at all'.
Scandals. The general gained a significant part of his notoriety due to two high-profile scandals connected to the tragic consequences of military exercises during his first term as Minister of Defense. In the first case, on April 20, 2000, an unsuccessfully launched land-to-land missile from a training ground in the Chernihiv region landed on a residential building in Brovary in the Kyiv region. Three people died, and five were injured. On October 4, 2001, another incident: a land-to-air missile launched during air defense troop exercises in Crimea brought down 78 passengers and crew members of a TU-154 aircraft flying from Tel Aviv to Novosibirsk over the Black Sea. In both cases, for several days after the incidents, high-ranking officials from the Ministry of Defense, led by the minister, tried to convince journalists and the public that the army was not involved. Following the resignation, the head of the criminal department issued a statement.