Viktoriya Symar

Date of Birth: 23.10.1977

Viktoriya Petrovna Symar is a Ukrainian journalist, member of the Verkhovna Rada of the VIII and IX convocations. Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (February 28, 2014 - June 6, 2014).

Place of Birth. Education. Born in Dnipropetrovsk region, raised in Vinnytsia region. Graduated from the Faculty of History of the National Taras Shevchenko University. She studied in the postgraduate program of the Institute of History of Ukraine of the NAS of Ukraine.

Career. First journalistic experiences - radio station Kontinent (1999-2003).

Since 1999, she has been a freelance correspondent for the Voice of America radio station in Ukraine.

2002 - Host of political programs on the Hromadske Radio station.

During the tightening of censorship in the country in 2004, she began working in the 'third sector' - in the human rights organization Institute of Mass Media (IMI), of which she has been the head since 2005.

She was a member of the public council at the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Freedom of Speech, the National Commission for the Ensuring Freedom of Speech and the Development of the Information Industry under the President of Ukraine (during the presidency of Viktor Yushchenko).

2008-2010 - Lecturer at the Institute of Journalism of the National Taras Shevchenko University.

In 2009, she was a chronicler of the Shuster Live program (a project of the journalist and television host Savik Shuster's production company 'Savik Shuster Studio'), which was broadcast on the Ukraine channel.

On February 28, 2014, she was appointed Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine by order of the acting President of Ukraine Oleksandr Turchynov. On June 6, 2014, she resigned from this position at her own request.

Member of the Supervisory Board of the Journalist School 'New Ukraine'.

Author of articles in Ukrainian publications Mirror Weekly, Telekritika, Ukrainska Pravda, and others.

From November 2014 to August 2019, she was a member of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine VIII convocation, elected from the list of the People's Front (number 7). She is Deputy Chairman of the People's Front faction and Chairman of the Committee on Freedom of Speech and Information Policy of the VRU.

In the early parliamentary elections of 2019, she was elected as a member of the European Solidarity party, number 16 on the party list.

Family. Married. She has a daughter Sofia from her first marriage with Viktor Taran. In July 2018 Viktoriya Symar remarried to the former Deputy Mayor of Irpin, Dmitriy Khrystyuk.

Hobbies. Geopolitics, philosophy. Participant of the Kyiv Discussion Club for amateurs.

12.10.2023