Ivan Vasiunik

Date of Birth: 07.07.1959

Place of Birth. Education. Native of the village of Bolshoy Lyubin Gorodotsky district near Lviv. In 1981 he graduated from I. Franko University in Lviv (Organization of Mechanized Processing of Economic Information, Economic Engineering). Candidate of Economic Sciences (1989).

Career. After obtaining a higher education degree, Vasiunik spent nearly 12 years at his alma mater. From 1981 to 1982, he was an assistant at the Department of Mechanized Processing of Economic Information, engineer at the scientific research sector of Lviv University. Until the end of 1985, he headed the university committee of the Komsomol. He then spent three and a half years as a Aspirant, junior researcher. From 1989 to 1993 - assistant, lecturer at the department.

From February 1993 to March 1995, he was the First Deputy General Director, General Director of the Lviv Institute of Management.

At the same time (from April 1994 to April 1997) he led the group of advisors to the First Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine, the Vice Prime Minister.

From then on, he headed the non-profit organization Reform Institute in Kyiv until April 2004. With a three-month break in 2000 when he was an advisor to Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko and Deputy Head of the Prime Minister's Office.

In 2002, he was elected as a deputy of the Ukrainian parliament on the list of the Yushchenko Our Ukraine bloc. At the time of the elections, he belonged to the party of Reforms and Order of Viktor Pinzenik. Later, he became a member of the Our Ukraine party and joined the presidium.

From March 2005 to March 2010, he was the Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine in the government of Yulia Tymoshenko.

Member of the Coordination Council for the Preparation of the Final of the European Championship 2012.

From November 2014 to August 2019, he was a deputy of the VIII Wander Parliament and entered the Verkhovna Rada via the People's Front list (position 18).

Views and Assessments. According to observers, Vasiunik knows how to adapt to 'great political circumstances' without forgetting his personal ambitions. He managed to get close to the head of state after a 'corruption scandal' that ended with the resignation of the State Secretary Zinchenko and the first Tymoshenko cabinet.

As Ukrayinska Pravda reported, Vasiunik, under Ribachuk, monitored strategic directions, including Naftogaz Ukrainy, from the secretariat. It was also in December 2005 when his brother Igor was appointed as deputy head of Naftogaz and had common business interests with the then head of Naftogaz, Alexei Ivchenko.

The areas of activity of Vasiunik in the secretariat included 'accompaniment and support' of political projects that Yushchenko was interested in. Thus, Vasiunik was able to prevent a split in the Our Ukraine party at that time. During the extraordinary parliamentary elections of 2007, Vasiunik was the deputy head of the election headquarters of the pro-presidential bloc Our Ukraine - National Self-Defense (NU NS).

Until recently, the former head of the People's Front re-elected, former head of NU Vyacheslav Kirilenko, was considered one of Vasiunik's protégés.

In Yulia Tymoshenko's second government, Vasiunik was 'drafted' according to a quota from NU NS. There he was given oversight of the humanitarian sector.

In March 2008, Vasiunik headed the commission established by the president to investigate the official activities of the mayor of Kyiv, Leonid Chernovetsky. Unfortunately, there was no complete and clear reporting on the results of the commission's work, and the early elections for the mayor of Kyiv initiated by Yulia Tymoshenko's bloc were won by the same Chernovetsky.

Moreover, the Deputy Prime Minister got into conflict with the American company Vanco, which won a government tender in 2005 for the development of an oil and gas field in the prichernensky sector of the Black Sea. According to the second Tymoshenko government, the competition took place with violations, and the winning company was almost a 'paper castle' in which several foreign students were involved. The government's decision, made in May 2008, on the unilateral withdrawal of Ukraine from the agreement with Vanco, was initiated by Vasiunik. According to his spokesman, Vasiunik believed that in case of questions regarding the agreement, national interests had to be defended, but 'within the legal framework'.

Family. The politician is married and has two daughters.

06.07.2022