Vasiliy Volga

Date of Birth: 05.03.1968

Place of Birth. Education. Born in Severodonetsk, Luhansk region. In 1990, he graduated from the Sevastopol Higher Military Engineering School (qualification - mechanical engineer, specialist in nuclear energy facilities). In 1999, he graduated from the Interregional Academy of Personnel Management with a specialization in banking. He studied at the Institute for Democracy in Washington and studied banking in Austria.

Career. After his military service, Volga worked for three years as a turbine group leader on nuclear submarines of the Northern Fleet. He then returned to Ukraine and found his place in the private business sector. From 1993 to 1998, he served as the Director of Kyiv LLC DOS LTD and the Director of LLC Mizar LTD.

As a public figure, he was the General Director of the International Union of Ukrainian Entrepreneurs, Chairman of the nationwide organization 'Public Control', and then leader of the same-named party. In the 2006 parliamentary elections, he was elected to the Verkhovna Rada with the number 17 of the SDPU list while being a member of this party. He became the Secretary of the Rada Committee against organized crime and corruption.

Due to the premature termination of the powers of the V Rada, he lost his deputy mandate.

In January 2008, the Ministry of Justice registered the new party founded and led by Volga - The Union of Left Forces.

On March 22, 2010, he was appointed by the order of the government of Mykola Azarov as the head of the State Commission for Regulation of Financial Services Markets.

On July 19, 2011, he was arrested 'for a crime related to corruption'. On July 20, the Pechersk Court of Kyiv ordered his detention for two months. The acting Prosecutor General Renat Kuzmin commented on this arrest, stating that Volga and three other officials were accused of receiving bribes amounting to 500,000 US dollars.

On July 25, 2011, he was dismissed as the head of the Financial Services Supervision by order of President Viktor Yanukovych.

Criminal Cases. On July 19 2011 he was arrested by the investigator of the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine together with SBU employees on suspicion of a corruption crime. On September 24, 2012, the Shevchenko District Court of Kyiv sentenced him to five years in prison for attempting to receive a bribe of 500,000 dollars. Other defendants received suspended sentences.

On December 3, 2014, Vasiliy Volga was released by having the remainder of the sentence replaced by community service.

From 2017, he lived for some time in Russia, then returned to Ukraine.

On November 6, 2018, the SBU conducted a search in the apartment of Vasiliy Volga in connection with the investigation into an attempted coup and high treason under articles 109 and 111 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

Aspirations. In 2004, he ran unsuccessfully, accompanied by loud and harsh statements, for the office of the President of Ukraine.

In December 2006, the leader of the Socialist faction Ivan Boky characterized the young colleague as follows: 'He is a rather complex personality, he only seriously integrates into the party and is not the key figure who can determine the face of the party.' However, according to observers, Volga sought a prominent role both in the Socialist Party and in the ruling Anti-Crisis Coalition after the 2006 elections: he often gave interviews and comments to the media on various topics and frequently participated in political talk shows on television and radio. The statements and assessments of the energetic socialist often seemed unreasoned and unbalanced and often appeared simply scandalous, offensive, or provocative. Like the characterization of the movement of Yuri Lutsenko Nasha Ukraina (after Volga - 'War Party') or the activities of Defense Minister Anatoliy Hrytsenko ('The country has become aware of the extent of the abuse in the Ministry of Defense, and this person is still not in prison... Hrytsenko will be in prison!'). Or what was the statement of the politician Ostroslov to President Victor Yushchenko after his order to dissolve the parliament: ' I doubt that a person who has consumed almost a glass of dioxin will behave appropriately'.

However, until the beginning of August 2007, Hrytsenko remained the Minister of Defense and was a candidate for the People's Deputies under number 4 of the election list of the block From Nasha Ukraina - Narodna Samoborona, while Volga spent the last days as a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of the V convocation and had no prospects of getting into the next convocation's parliament after the early September elections. His name did not appear in the passing part of the list of both the 'indigenous' Socialist Party and the Party of Regions, with which he apparently sympathized.

Volga himself explained his exclusion from the SDPU list that he had received a party assignment just before the distribution of list places - to go to the Donetsk region and sharply criticize the regional government. After refusing to take the inappropriate position 39, he decided to withdraw his candidacy and instead criticized the leader of the SDPU, Alexander Moroz, who 'panicked at the thought of losing the speaker of parliament'.

After the defeat of the Socialist Party in the elections, Volga publicly declared his intention to fight for the chairmanship of this political force. When the number with an 'internal party coup' was not accepted, he organized, led, and began to 'market' his own leftist party.

The relationship between Volga and his former political patron and mentor continues to exist in a state of constant war. At every suitable opportunity, the opponents exchange verbal blows and bury each other's political projects.

Family. Volga is married. He has two sons (Vasiliy and Ilya) and two daughters (Yelena and Yekaterina).

05.03.2022