Oleh Lyashko

Lyashko was born in Chernihiv on 3 December 1972,[6] but grew up in the village of Lozovivka in Starobilsk Raion, where his mother lived.[12] When Lyashko was two years old, his parents separated, and his mother was forced to send him to an orphanage.[12][13] Lyashko studied in three boarding schools: Yablunivskoy, Komarovskaya, and Borznyansky. He worked as a shepherd at the Progress collective farm.[12] After completing his secondary education he went to college to study as a tractor operator.[12] In a September 2015 interview, Lyashko stated that shepherd was his summer job back in 1987-88: he used to travel to Luhansk Oblast by train and earn up to 300 rubles per summer (around US$500 at the time).[12] After that Lyashko would buy clothing and shoes in Starobilsk.[12] When he graduated from boarding school, Lyashko had around 2,000 rubles in savings, the value of which was completely wiped out by post-Soviet inflation.[12]

In 1998 he graduated from the Faculty of Law H.S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University.[6]

From 1990 till 1992 Lyashko was a correspondent and head of the newspaper Young Guard (based in Kyiv).[6] In 1992 he became an editor of Commerce Herald[12] of the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations of Ukraine.[6]

On 21 June 1993 Lyashko was arrested and indicted for grand funds embezzlement.[6] On 9 December 1994,[12] the Criminal College of the Kyiv City Court found Lyashko guilty according to articles 86–1, 191, and 194 part 3 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The court found Lyashko guilty of embezzlement of 1,300,000 rubles personally, and 1,100,000 roubles collectively with accomplices. Lyashko was sentenced to six years in prison and sequestration of the property. The Supreme Court reduced the time to four years' imprisonment. Lyashko was released in May 1995 under the amnesty[12] due to the "50th anniversary of the Victory over Nazi Germany". In 1998, the criminal case was erased.[12][13] Lyashko himself claims the case was payback for his critical journalism.[12] He claims that his case was falsified by deputy minister of Internal Affairs Veniamin Bartashevych.[12]

In 2013, Oleh Lyashko described Rinat Akhmetov as the guarantor of Ukraine's independence.[35] In 2016, a special investigation conducted by Radio Liberty (Ukraine) recorded the facts of secret meetings between Oleh Lyashko and Rinat Akhmetov.[36] In February 2018, the former director of a Mariupol factory belonging to the Metinvest group, Yuriy Zinchenko headed the executive committee of the Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko.[37] On May 9, 2018, the journalist of Ukrayinska Pravda Oleksiy Bratushchak published the blog "Lyashko becomes Akhmetov's talisman", in which Lyashko was directly accused of cooperating with Akhmetov.[38] Lyashko makes frequent appearances during broadcasts of the TV channel Ukraine, which belongs to Akhmetov. As media expert Natalia Lihacheva, Chairman of "Detector Media" NGO stated: "According to our monitoring, there is almost no day when Lyashko does not appear there for any reason".[39]

On 2 June 2018, Lyashko married Rosita Sayaranen, formalizing a 20-year partnership. The couple have one daughter, Vladislava.[40]

Lyashko's private life is surrounded by rumours that he is gay, something Lyashko has always firmly denied.[13][41] In early October 2010, a video shot in 1993 was leaked onto the internet in which a young man who looks and sounds like Lyashko talks about having sexual relations with another man, a certain high-ranking official.[7][12][41] Lyashko had been rumored to be gay for a long time before the video appeared.[41] The day after the video was leaked he issued a statement accusing political opponents of doctoring the video using "modern technologies".[41] And he stated "Personally, I have a traditional sexual orientation".[41] In an interview in October 2012, Lyashko was told by a spoof interviewer that the reporter's friend believed Lyashko represented sexual minorities in parliament. Lyashko was handed a mobile phone, spoke to the supposed friend and then promised to beat his face in while being filmed on camera.[42] Lyashko had stressed in May 2011 he had nothing against sexual minorities.[43] In an interview in September 2015, he stated that being LGBT "is the choice of each individual. I can not condemn".[12]

• Official Site
• Biography
• Impunity reigns for abductions and ill-treatment by pro-Kyiv vigilantes in eastern Ukraine
• Marchenko, Yu. Out of all pitchforks: where came from and what reached Oleh Lyashko. Ukrayinska Pravda. 18 September 2015