Stetskyi Taras

Date of Birth: 07.06.1964

Place of Birth. Education. Born in Lviv. Father - jeweler, mother - fashion designer. Stetskyi is a historian by profession and graduated in 1986 from I. Franko University in Lviv.

Career. After graduation, he taught at a boarding school. In 1987 he became a teacher at the Medical College of Lviv. Later, he was a junior researcher at the Museum of Ukrainian Art in Lviv.

In the late 1980s, Stetskyi became increasingly engaged in political activities. From 1987 to 1989, he was secretary and board member of the 'Leva Society' in Lviv. From 1989 to 1990, he was a member of the presidium of the Lviv Oblast Movement Council, a member of the Grand Council of the movement. Since 1991, he has been a member of the presidium of the Democratic Reconstruction Party of Ukraine (DRPU).

Political Career. Stetskyi was a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine for the first four terms. As a parliamentarian, he was a member of the DRPU and the People's Democratic Party. One of the most important times in Stetskyi's political life was his time in the Reform and Order Party, which he joined in 1999. Shortly thereafter, he took the lead of the ROP and headed the organization in the Lviv Oblast.

In the Verkhovna Rada of the IV term, Stetskyi was one of the prominent members of the 'Our Ukraine' faction. In 2004, he actively participated in Viktor Yushchenko's election campaign and the 'Orange Revolution,' being one of the four 'field commanders.' On the victorious revolutionary wave in February 2005, he received an important position - the chairman of the National Television and Radio Company of Ukraine (Channel UT-1). Together with his deputy - the former journalist of Channel 5 and future deputy Andriy Shevchenko - he began reforming the First National: the plan was to keep 'only professionals' on the channel, eliminate 'dead weight,' launch new programs, qualitatively change the news broadcasts, and prepare the channel for the creation of a state television (as early as summer 2006). However, unlike Maidan, he failed to create a revolution at UT-1, and he had to face resistance in creating a state television. On September 8, 2005, he was dismissed at his own request by the President of Ukraine from the position of the chairman of the NTU. This resignation almost coincided with the resignation of Yulia Tymoshenko's government.

In the 2006 elections, Stetskyi was not elected to the Verkhovna Rada for the first time since 1991. The 'Pora-ROP' bloc could not overcome the three percent threshold despite all efforts by the leadership. On September 21, 2006, President Yushchenko appointed Stetskyi as a political advisor. This role was not new for him: in 1993, he was an advisor to Prime Minister Leonid Kuchma.

In the early elections in the fall of 2007, he was elected to the Verkhovna Rada from the list of the pro-presidential mega-block 'Our Ukraine - People's Defense' (NU-NS).

In the fall of 2012, he ran as an independent candidate in single-member constituency No. 117 in Lviv Oblast for the Verkhovna Rada of the VII Parliament and lost to the representative of 'Batkivshchyna' Ihor Vasyunik.

In 2014, he was included in the electoral list (No. 7) of the party Civic Position of Anatoliy Hrytsenko, the party did not overcome the 5% threshold and did not make it to parliament.

Views and Evaluations. In October 2006, Stetskyi stated that the Reform and Order Party still exists de jure, but de facto it does not exist, as it hardly manifested itself in the six months following the parliamentary elections. For this, he was expelled from the ROP on November 16, with the formulation 'damaged the party's reputation by his actions.'

In the winter of 2007, the non-party Stetskyi was one of the first in founding the new opposition movement People's Defense, which at that time was led by former Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko. He advocated for immediate new parliamentary elections, as the Social Party's transition into a coalition with the Party of Regions and the CPU endangered the voters' hopes. After the announcement of early elections, he was included in place 29 in the NU-NS list.

Stetskyi believes that Ukraine should not make political concessions to Russia in order to receive a gas price lower than for all of Europe and that the insurgents of the UPA should be officially recognized as participants in the liberation movement for the independence of Ukraine. He advocated for the creation of a shadow government with the BYuT and Our Ukraine factions in the V term parliament.

Family, Hobbies. The politician is married, his wife Galina Stepanovna (born 1962) is a teacher. They have two children.

Stetskyi speaks English and Polish. He is interested in football and loves literature - historical, philosophical, European, and Ukrainian classics.

07.06.2022