Yuriy Shukhevych was born on March 28, 1933 in the town of Ohladów, Lwów Voivodeship, Poland. He is the son of Roman Shukhevych, a commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. In 1944 when the West Ukraine was re-occupied by the Red Army, he was arrested with his mother and sent to Siberia. In 1946 Shukhevych was taken away from his mother to orphanage for children of enemies of the people in Donets Basin. He ran away twice back home, but later was taken back again. Already in 1948 started court proceedings against Shukhevych and when he turned 16, Shukhevych was convicted by the Soviet regime for 10 years in the Vladimir Central Prison for the political position of his father who was renowned for his stand against both Soviet/Polish/German occupants being one of the main heroes of the Ukrainian liberation movement of the mid 20th century. In December 1990 Shukhevych was elected as head of Ukrainian National Assembly which itself was renamed Ukrainian National Assembly – Ukrainian National Self Defencein September 1991. Shukhevych failed to register as a candidate in the 1991 Ukrainian presidential election because of a failure to collect 100,000 signatures. In the 1994 Ukrainian parliamentary election Shukhevych failed to win an after winning no more than 7.44% of the votes in single-member districts in Zolochiv. In August 1994 Shukhevych retired from active political life because of health problems and relationships with other leaders of the party had finally deteriorated. Early 2006 Shukhevych returned to politics and entered in the electoral list of the UNA-UNSO for the March 2006 Ukrainian parliamentary election at number 1. The party, however, lost the election, and gained no more than 0.06% of the total votes. The party did not participate in the 2007 elections. On 19 August 2006 Shukhevych was awarded the title Hero of Ukraine "for civil courage, long-term social, political and human rights activities in the name of independence of Ukraine". In October 2006 UNA-UNSO re-elected Shukhevych as its chairman. And again did so in June 2010. In February 2014 Shukhevych signed a petition that asked to respect the Russian language and Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine lifestyle "so they do not feel like strangers in Ukraine". In October 2014 Shukhevych was removed from his post as UNA-UNSO chairman due to the fact that he had agreed to run for the parliamentary elections for Radical Party. In the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election Shukhevych as a candidate of Radical Party was elected into the Ukrainian parliament. In 2015 he was instrumental drafting and passing of the Ukrainian decommunization laws. Radical Party lost all its parliamentary seats in the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election, because it gained about 1% to little to clear the 5% election threshold and also did not win an electoral district seat.
