Andriy Taran

He was born March 4, 1955 in the East German city of Frankfurt an der Oder to a military family serving in the Soviet Army's Group of Soviet Forces in Germany. In the 1970s, he graduated from the Kyiv Higher Engineer School of Artillery (now the Ivan Chernyakhovsky National Defense University of Ukraine) specializing in military radio engineering. In the 1980s he graduated from the Air Defense Army Academy in Kyiv with a major in combat management. He also underwent studies at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and the National Defense University in Washington.[1] He is fluent in the English and Russian languages as second languages.[2]

In the early 90s, he served in the central office of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and then went to the Chief Directorate of Intelligence.[3] He worked at the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine as an expert in the Center for Strategic Planning and Analysis, then returned to the central office of the Ministry of Defense in 1996. After leaving the Defence Ministry in 1999, he became a military attaché at the Embassy of Ukraine, Washington, D.C. From 2008, he was the Deputy Head of the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine. For five months ending in April 2016, he was the First Deputy Commander of the Armed Forces of the Armed Forces. In 2016, he retired at the age of 61 due to his age, holding the rank of Lieutenant General. From September to November 2015, he worked in the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine.[4]

In 2019, he headed the election headquarters of presidential candidate and former SBU head Ihor Smeshko.[5][6] In the 2019 parliamentary elections, he ran for parliament with Smeshko's Strength and Honor party.[7] But in the election the party won 3.82% of the votes, not enough to clear the 5% election threshold and it thus gained no parliamentary seats.[8]