Oleksiy Honcharenko
Oleksiy Honcharenko - Ukrainian politician, the chairman of the Odessa Regional Council, the leader of the public organization "Quality of Life". In 2014, he was elected to the Verkhovna Rada on the party list of Petro Poroshenko Bloc. In the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election Hocharenko was reelected as an independent candidate in single-seat constituency 137.
Biography
Hocharenko is a son of former mayor of Odessa Oleksiy Kostusyev. His parents divorced when he was three years old.From 1999 until 2001 Hocharenko worked in the Odessa emergency medical station. In 2002 Honcharenko graduated with honors from Medical University, but did not pursue a medical career but a career in politics.
In 2002, at age 21, he ran unsuccessfully for the Odessa City Council of the District in the village Tairove. After that he worked as an assistant for a deputy of the city council.
From 2002 Honcharenko was a student at Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation in Moscow, Russia. He graduated from the Academy in 2005, receiving a degree in economics.
In 2005 he was elected chairman of the Odessa city organization of the party Soyuz.
In 2006 and 2010 he was elected to the Odessa City Council for Party of Regions.
During the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election he was a candidate in majority district 133 lost to Ihor Markov with 20.6% of the votes.
Before Euromaidan, Honcharenko was an active member of the Party of Regions. On 19 February 2014 after the first deaths of the Euromaidan-protests Hocharenko wrote the statement on his withdrawal from the Party of Regions.
In the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election he was elected into the Ukrainian parliament for Petro Poroshenko Bloc placed number 40 on the party list. He became deputy head of the faction.
On 23 February 2017, it was reported that Honcharenko had been kidnapped by unidentified attackers in Odessa. A few hours in a televised interview Honcharenko said he "was in a safe place" and Ukrainian prosecutors reported that the people involved in the kidnapping had been detained. Honcharenko claimed that his abduction was staged by the Ukrainian Security Service so that "separatist, terrorist groups operating in Odessa who planned causing me serious bodily harm" could be arrested.
In October 2017, the deputy from the Opposition Bloc, Nestor Shufrych, during the show on the NewsOne TV channel told Honcharenko that he considered himself as his godfather in politics. In 2010, Shufrich helped resolve the conflict between Oleksiy and his father, Oleksiy Kostusyev. Oleksiy then didn't prevent his father from being elected as mayor of Odessa with the guarantee of Honcharenko's election in the Verkhovna Rada.
On 1 November 2018, Oleksiy Honcharenko was included in the Russian sanctions list in connection with Ukraine’s unfriendly actions towards citizens and legal entities of the Russian Federation.
In the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election Hocharenko was reelected as an independent candidate in single-seat constituency 137.
Controversies
In January 2015, Ukrainian blogger and journalist Anatoly Shariy published a video showing that Oleksiy Honcharenko traveled on the Celebrity Silhouette cruise ship in the Caribbean. Honcharenko was criticized for going on an expensive vacation during the War in Donbass.On 1 March 2015 Hocharenko was arrested by Russian police during Nemtsov Memorial March. According to Honcharenko when in detention he was beaten and deprived of medical and legal help. Honcharenko was released from prison the next day but he promised to sue Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. With the release of Honcharenko from the Moscow's "Kitay-gorod" police department, the people's deputy was returned his $ 6,150. Honcharenko explained the origin of money as a donation of a Russian citizen to the annual Odessa marathon. He stated this on Channel 5.
In July 2015, Oleksiy Honcharenko received online instructions from the SBU head Vasyl Hrytsak during the Shuster Live TV show. When Honcharenko began showing photos of the detention and arrest of a large sum of money from one of the court’s leaders in the Kherson Oblast, a push-message from Hrytsak displayed on the screen of the smartphone: “Talk about the Service, that it is changing, it’s starting to work, do not gain your publicity!”
In August 2015, during the meeting of the Presidium of the Odessa Oblast Council the Governor of Odessa Oblast Mikheil Saakashvili called Oleksiy Honcharenko and the head of the Council Mykhaylo Shmushkovych "thieves and criminals." Saakashvili also said that "they all will sit ."
On 4 June 2016, the Prosecutor's Office of Ukraine opened criminal proceedings against Oleksiy Honcharenko under section 110, Part 2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine and section 161 . These cases were opened in response to the deputy appeal of Ihor Mosiychuk. He claimed that Honcharenko "promoted the ideas of the 'Russian World' in Odessa, communicated with FSB officers and worked against Ukraine." Goncharenko denied the accusations of representative of the Radical Party, described these cases as "nonsense."
On 8 February 2017, Oleksiy Honcharenko painted with red paint the word "Nein" on the fragment of the Berlin Wall, installed in front of the Embassy of Germany in Kiev. With this action, Honcharenko protested against the statement of the German Ambassador to Ukraine, Ernst Reichel, who said that the absence of Russian troops was not a prerequisite for holding elections in the Donbass. The Embassy of Germany in Kiev responded to the incident with the following statement: "The Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany is very much regretting the damage and disfigurement of the fragment of the historic Berlin Wall located on the territory of the Embassy by deputy Honcharenko. At the same time, there is a violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations." The Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Yuriy Lutsenko, announced the opening by the Prosecutor’s Office in Kiev the criminal case against Honcharenko on the fact of hooligan actions at the German Embassy: "On the fact of hooliganism at the German Embassy, the Kiev Prosecutor’s Office opened a criminal proceedings on the legal qualification of Part 1 of Art. 296 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The authorities of the capital's Prosecutor's Office will ensure a full, objective and impartial investigation of this fact."
On 9 October 2018, Oleksiy Honcharenko spoke at a meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in large rubber gloves. He said that without gloves it would be "unsafe to shake hands and touch door handles", hinting at the accusations of Russia in the poisoning of Skripals. Assembly President, Liliane Maury Pasquier, made a remark to the Ukrainian deputy: "Mr. Honcharenko, I want to remind you that we are not on the stage of the theater, so it’s not necessary to use different props for changing clothes."
Earnings
In 2010, in an interview with journalist Roman Skrypin, Honcharenko explained the origin of the 700 thousand dollars indicated in the 2010 declaration. He said that he borrowed the money from his father-in-law who worked at Gazprom.According to the electronic declaration, in 2016, Honcharenko earned UAH 152.8 thousand as a deputy, he also received UAH 166.36 thousand compensation for rental housing, as well as UAH 26.4 thousand compensation for travel throughout the country. Deposits in banks brought Honcharenko UAH 97 thousand. His wife received from business activities UAH 1.43 million. The deputy had UAH 177 thousand and € 54.5 thousand on accounts in banks, as well as USD 45 thousand in cash. Honcharenko declared two apartments in Kiev and Odessa. Olha Honcharenko owns an apartment in Mykolaiv with an area of 54.5 m².