Vereshchuk Iryna Andriivna
Official biography.
Member of the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) of the IX convocation. Member of the Servant of the People party faction (No. 29 on the party list). Head of the Subcommittee on State Security and Defense. Former representative of the Cabinet of Ministers in the Verkhovna Rada (from September 4 to November 15, 2019). Former head of Rava-Ruska (2010-2015). Candidate of Sciences in Public Administration. She was an official candidate in the 2020 Kyiv mayoral elections from the Servant of the People party.
Date of birth — November 30, 1979, Rava-Ruska, Lviv region.
Education.
1997 — graduated from Rava-Ruska boarding school.
1997-2002 — Lviv Polytechnic National University, Military Institute, specialty “International Information”.
2002-2005 — Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, specialty “International Information”. Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, specialty “Law”.
2008-2010 — student of the Lviv Regional Institute of Public Administration of the National Academy of Public Administration.
2015 — PhD in Public Administration.
2015-2016 — internship in Poland under the Kirkland Program of the Polish-American Freedom Foundation.
2016 — graduated from Krajowa Szkoła Administracji Publicznej (Poland).
2017 — received the degree of associate professor at the Drahomanov National Pedagogical University.
Family.
Married for the second time. His civilian husband is Mykhailo Viktorovych Kukharenko, co-founder of the branch of the International Association of Veterans of the Alpha Anti-Terrorism Unit (SBU Special Forces) in Lviv region. According to open databases, he is serving in the Kyiv military unit E6117, the Alpha Center for Special Operations and Counterterrorism.
Iryna Vereshchuk’s first husband was also a soldier.
Her son is Oleh, born in 2004.
Compromising evidence
One of the 6 assistants is Mykola Bilchenko, who worked for Vitaliy Barvinenko, a former member of the Party of Regions. Iryna stated that she was not aware of this.
In September 2019, she said that NATO did not intend to accept Ukraine into its ranks and that it was therefore necessary to reconsider the approach to relations with them: “We want to, but we are not accepted. And we are knocking on closed doors and losing our reputation. We cannot go where we are not welcome.”
On February 3, 2020, on the air of the Nash TV channel, she actively defended and justified the MP from the Servant of the People party, Bragar, who the day before had offered a pensioner from the village of Adzhamka to sell a purebred dog to pay for utilities.
In early May 2020, she called for an apology to those killed in Odesa in 2014, which caused a wave of outrage.
Conflict with Poroshenko
Vereshchuk’s accusation of the fifth President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko of congratulating Putin on Russia Day after the start of Russian aggression caused a media stir, in response to which Poroshenko denied this fact and accused Vereshchuk of lying and spreading Kremlin fake news. Vereshchuk explained that she had taken the information from the Channel 24 website, where it was presented according to Russian Presidential Press Secretary Peskov.
Bribe of 200 thousand dollars
It is worth noting that the sponsorship of Iryna Vereshchuk, who scandalously resigned as mayor of Rava-Ruska, by pro-Russian oligarchs and Putin’s godfather began before the Revolution of Dignity. Thus, in 2013, Vereshchuk was found to have received a bribe of $200,000, which the mayor, of course, did not declare.
Schemes and connections
As the mayor of the border town, she actively cooperated internationally, in particular, with the Polish city of Tomaszów Lubelski, the Lubiczka-Krulewska Commune, and the Teliatyn Commune.
Internet publications write that Iryna Vereshchuk did not hide the fact that Taras Kozak (MP of the 9th convocation from the OPFL, No. 10 on the party’s list, owner of the TV channels “NewsOne” and “112.Ukraine”, friend and business partner of Viktor Medvedchuk, Vladimir Putin’s godfather) was directly involved in financing the center “International Center for Baltic-Black Sea Studies and Consensus Practices”.
However, in an interview with Channel 24, Vereshchuk claimed that the International Center for Baltic-Black Sea Studies and Consensus Practices was funded by the Drahomanov Institute. Drahomanov Institute and is assisted by businessman Borys Khranovskyi. Vereshchuk explained to Censor. Net explained the information about Kozak by saying that he, as a member of the regional council, “groomed” her as mayor of Rava-Ruska, offering various budget programs in the interests of the city in exchange for political support.
Despite the above denials, there are rumors that Iryna Vereshchuk got into the Verkhovna Rada thanks to Taras Kozak and Viktor Medvedchuk, who paid $2 million for her.
In addition, the executive director of the International Center for Baltic-Black Sea Studies and Consensus Practices and a partner in Everyone Matters was Arseniy Pushkarenko, a member of the Verkhovna Rada of the IX convocation from the Servant of the People party.
Scandals and events
In November 2013, the day after Azarov’s government announced its refusal to sign the Association Agreement with the EU, Iryna Vereshchuk, on behalf of the community of Rava-Ruska, appealed to the European Union to sign the Association Agreement separately with Rava-Ruska, considering the official position of the Ukrainian authorities on the suspension of European integration to be not in the interests of local communities.
In December 2014, the media reported that Iryna Vereshchuk was robbed. It happened near the pre-school No. 1, where the mayor parked and went on business. At that moment, two unknown persons broke the windshield and stole a bag that allegedly contained $30,000 in cash and documents for the allocation of land plots.
Most likely, not a “completely legal” allocation. There was no official confirmation of this incident, and Iryna Vereshchuk categorically denied this fact.
The Parasyuk scandal
In early 2015, Vereshchuk resigned as mayor. At the time, the press reported on a high-profile conflict between Mayor Iryna Vereshchuk and MP Volodymyr Parasyuk (Verkhovna Rada of the VIII convocation, 2014-2019, non-factional, constituency 122 — Zhovkva and Yavoriv districts of Lviv region), which led to Vereshchuk’s resignation, stating at a city council meeting that she was “tired of constant pressure and unfounded accusations from pseudo-patriots.”
Prior to that, Parasyuk accused Vereshchuk of corruption on his Facebook page, saying that she gives away communal land to her relatives, rarely comes to work, and that the city residents often see her “on Shuster LIVE, where she tells the whole country how to live, but in practice everything looks completely different,” vesti-ukr writes.
The city council did not accept her resignation, and Vereshchuk remained mayor. She appealed to the SBU and the Interior Ministry to assess the actions of MP Volodymyr Parasyuk, as some of them destabilize the situation in the border areas of Lviv region. It should be reminded that Vereshchuk and Parasyuk were opponents in the 2014 parliamentary elections, when they both ran for the VIII convocation of the Verkhovna Rada.
Vereshchuk in Moscow
In 2015, Iryna Vereshchuk traveled to Moscow to visit her friend, Russian propagandist Marina Akhmedova. On March 27 of that year, the first award ceremony of the French newspaper Le Courrier de Russie took place at the Moscow Documentary Film Center. At that time, five cultural figures and philanthropists from Russia and France received awards “for their independence of judgment and courage in defending their position.” Propagandist Marina Akhmedova was nominated for the Best Journalist award for her work in Donbas. The online publication Depo also recalled that in 2013, Akhmedova came to Vereshchuk in Rava-Ruska and wrote a report about the city, and then interviewed her during the election campaign.
After 2015, Vereshchuk became a frequent guest on 112 Ukraine, Newsone, Yevhen Muraiev’s Nash.MAXY-TV, and ZIK TV channel after it changed ownership. As a reminder, ZIK, 112 Ukraine and Newsone are owned by MP Taras Kozak of the OPFL and, according to media reports, are controlled by Viktor Medvedchuk. Excerpts from Vereshchuk’s speeches on these TV channels are reprinted by Russian media, according to focus.ua.
On her political activities
Later, Vereshchuk began to defend NewsOne against the National Council on Television and Radio Broadcasting, which went to court to revoke the license. Vereshchuk said that the members of the National Council had “professional deformities… I read their decisions, which in my subjective opinion are unfounded,” she said.
Iryna Vereshchuk is generally active in commenting on current political events. For example, she is a strong opponent of Volodymyr Viatrovych (MP of the IX convocation, European Solidarity faction, No. 25 on the party’s list) remaining the head of the Institute of National Memory — in her opinion, he is to blame for the historical disputes between Poland and Ukraine in recent years, Rzeczpospolita reports.
In November 2019, Iryna Vereshchuk told Censor.NET about a meeting with Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk, who was most likely dissatisfied with her work and offered to write a letter of resignation.
“My function was to communicate. If communication fails, then there must be someone who is the party that is responsible. I can’t replace the Prime Minister, I can only help to communicate. And when the prime minister does not hear, does not feel the need to hear, or does not understand what I am proposing, I would rather write a statement and make room for a person who can provide this,” Vereshchuk said.
On July 16, 2020, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy came to the primaries of the Servant of the People faction in the Verkhovna Rada of the IX convocation, which took place at the Parkovy Exhibition and Convention Center. He presented the results of an opinion poll, according to which Vereshchuk is the most promising candidate for mayor of Kyiv from the ruling party. Zelensky insisted that the faction support Vereshchuk, but after presentations of programs and discussions, a secret ballot was held.
According to its results, the participants in the primaries received the following number of votes: Iryna Vereshchuk — 87; Oleksandr Dubinsky — 41; Mykola Tyshchenko — 30; Dmytro Hurin — 15; Oleksandr Kachura — 3.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared Iryna Vereshchuk the winner of the primaries. This meant that she would run for mayor of Kyiv from the Servant of the People party. “In addition to all the epithets and qualities of Iryna, it is important that she ran the city. She is a person with a lot of practical experience,” he said at a briefing after the meeting of the Servant of the People faction.
On the same day, with President Zelensky’s direct approval, Vereshchuk challenged Vitali Klitschko to a debate.
On July 26, 2020, in an interview with vesti.ua. Iryna Vereshchuk said that the same party’s election headquarters that worked in the national elections would work in the upcoming local elections in Kyiv, and that it would be headed by the head of the Servant of the People party, Oleksandr Kornienko.
Commenting on Zelensky’s plans to nominate Vereshchuk as a candidate for mayor of Kyiv from the Servant of the People party, another potential candidate who received half as many votes in the primaries, Oleksandr Dubinsky, told Strana.ua the day before:
“We are told that a telephone survey of 2,000 Kyiv residents was conducted, which showed that Vereshchuk is the most desirable candidate for mayor of Kyiv from our party. But many of us are extremely skeptical: Iryna Andriyivna is clearly not a fighter. And when the compromising material about the land, amber, her work as mayor of Rava-Ruska, and, I think, her ties to OPFL, starts to surface, Vereshchuk will be blown away and won’t even make it to the second round. I think it will be hot in the faction, because losing the battle for Kyiv is a very bad story. In the regions, everyone is looking at the capital, and when they see that our candidate is losing in a landslide, they will leave. And the party’s rating, which leaves much to be desired, will sink even further.”
The nomination of Iryna Vereshchuk as a candidate for mayor of Kyiv by the Servant of the People party caused surprise among social media users. The future candidate was accused of lacking managerial experience and involvement in corruption schemes. Volodymyr Parasyuk, a notorious Euromaidan activist and centurion, was one of the first to respond, having had quite sharp conflicts with Vereshchuk in the past.
The candidacy of Iryna Vereshchuk consolidated political experts in the opinion that the SN team was “leaking” the election in favor of the current mayor, and with “stupid” burgundy advertising.
Given the fact that Vereshchuk did not criticize her opponent so much as advertise him on her election shows, MP Geo Leros suggested that Klitschko and Vereshchuk would work together after the election.
As the election day approached, Iryna Vereshchuk stepped up her criticism of Vitali Klitschko in the public space, focusing on his lack of character in relation to the “watchdogs” and corrupt officials.
In August 2020, she demanded on live TV in a harsh manner to investigate the corrupt actions of the current mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, and the “supervisor” Denys Komarnytskyi. Later, on the same occasion, Vereshchuk called Klitschko a “wimp” and then stated that her main complaint against the current mayor was that he allowed Komarnytsky to sit on his head and that the “Institute of Supervisors”, which developed in Kyiv under the leadership of Vitali Klitschko, posed a threat to national security.
On September 10, 2020, in an interview with Dmytro Gordon, former head of the OP Andriy Bohdan suggested that Iryna Vereshchuk would not be able to win the election of the current mayor Vitali Klitschko, and the OP guessed that she would not be able to win, so, according to the OP’s plan, she should take over as head of the Kyiv City State Administration and become the de facto owner of the capital. However, according to Bohdan, the OP does not understand that this plan cannot be implemented at the legislative level.
On September 11, on the talk show “Narod Protyv”, Vereshchuk again challenged Klitschko to a debate, which did not take place, as the mayor’s team was fundamentally against his participation in any debate.
On September 18, political expert and blogger Viktor Taran wrote in a post on his Facebook page: “Fresh insights have come from the headquarters of Kyiv mayoral candidate Iryna Vereshchuk. They say she is seriously planning to withdraw her candidacy from the election. The reason is the sabotage of her campaign by the “curators” of the Kyiv elections by the “Servants of the People” — MP Mykola Tyshchenko, “watcher” Denis Komarnitsky and Alla Shlapak, a representative of the ever-young team of former mayor Leonid Chernovetsky.”
Income and property
The media note that Iryna Vereshchuk, who demonstrates rather modest official income and no monetary assets in her declaration, dresses expensively. Her outfits, which she changes quite often, are estimated at $6-7 thousand. So let’s take a look at the declaration of the “modest” ex-mayor. And let’s find out what the former mayor’s material wealth is.
According to the declaration for 2019, since 2017, Iryna Vereshchuk and her family have been renting a 95-square-meter apartment in Kyiv owned by Daria Volchenko. Since 2019, Vereshchuk has owned: 50% of a 37.6 sq. m. apartment in Brovary, Kyiv region, together with Kukharenko Valentyna Pavlivna; 60% of a 53.2 sq. m. apartment in Lviv together with Smik Olha Teodorivna (who was the head and liquidator of the NGO “Regional Development Agency ‘Zhovkva — European House’); 50% of a 45.5 sq. m. apartment in Lviv together with Kukharenko Viktor Serhiiovych; and a 38.6 sq. m. apartment in Rava-Ruska.
Since 2019, Iryna Vereshchuk has owned two land plots: 1000 sq. m. in Rava-Ruska and 19 thousand 977 sq. m. in Soloshyno, Zhovkva district.
Vereshchuk’s common-law husband, Mykhailo Kukharenko, has owned an 800-square-meter plot of land in Horodok district, Lviv region, since 2014 and an 891-square-meter plot of land in Lebedivka, Vyshhorod district, Kyiv region, since 2016.
Only Iryna Vereshchuk has a car in the family — a Toyota Camry, manufactured in 2018.
At the end of 2019, Iryna Vereshchuk received an income of UAH 518 thousand 762: UAH 43 thousand — salary at the Drahomanov National Pedagogical University, UAH 150 thousand — fee from Systemtrade LLC, UAH 69 thousand — salary at Alpari Bank, UAH 25 thousand — salary at the Institute of Ecology, Economics and Law, UAH 24 thousand. — salary at the NGO “International Center for Baltic-Black Sea Studies and Consensus Practices”, UAH 172 thousand — deputy salary and UAH 33 thousand — material benefit from the “Servant of the People” party to pay for education expenses.
In 2019, Vereshchuk’s civilian husband received only a salary in the military unit E-6117 in the amount of UAH 898 thousand 73.
Only Iryna Vereshchuk had savings and kept them only in cash — 130 thousand hryvnias and 15 thousand dollars. US DOLLARS.
According to the YouControl analytical system, since 2013, Iryna Vereshchuk has been one of the founders of Ukrainian Amber Exchange LLC (Kyiv, EDRPOU 39030399), specializing in wholesale trade, production of jewelry and similar products. The activity has been suspended.
According to Iryna Vereshchuk’s report, in the period from September 22 to October 28, 2020, during the 2020 local elections, her election fund was filled exclusively with funds from the local organization of the political party “Servant of the People” in the amount of UAH 25 million 118 thousand 300. The fund was used almost entirely with a balance of UAH 268.65. The account was managed by Natalia Zubchenko, a pro bono assistant to MP Vereshchuk in the Verkhovna Rada.
The fight between Leros and Buzhasky over Iryna Vereshchuk
In December 2019, in the Verkhovna Rada, Maksym Buzhaskyi fought with Geo Leros (then a member of the Servant of the People faction) because the latter allegedly spoke obscenely about Iryna Vereshchuk in the faction’s chat room. Vereshchuk herself was “touched and shocked” by Buzhansky’s action, who “could not stand it when someone tries to elevate a woman in such a way.”
What happened to Rava-Ruska after Vereshchuk left?
The current mayor of Rava-Ruska, Mykola Zinko, took over immediately after Iryna Vereshchuk and added that the settlement was not in the best condition after her resignation.
According to media reports, Iryna Vereshchuk resigned early from her position as mayor of Rava-Ruska allegedly because of a land scandal.
“There was a big scandal, it was about almost 400 land plots. And the documentation was developed by a relative of Iryna Vereshchuk for an amount that was higher than the market price,” Zinko revealed the details of the scandal.
Residents of Rava-Ruska, where Vereshchuk was the mayor, do not hide their attitude toward the former mayor, barely choosing their words.
“I don’t even want to remember. She sold half of Rava,” ‘We don’t remember anything good about Vereshchuk,’ ”I wouldn’t advise Kyiv residents to do this. Let them come to their senses and think carefully,” the locals said in a conversation with journalists.
Fake “Servant of the People”
Today, some media outlets, calling the political expert a fake “Servant of the People,” also note that she is broadcast on separatist online resources. It is noted that the ex-mayor is also very popular with anti-Ukrainian publications that speak unflatteringly of Ukrainians and even call for their murder. In particular, Ukraine.ru, Antifascist, etc.
Conflict with Stepan Tsiolkovsky
In 2013, during a meeting, the mayor of Rava-Ruska, Iryna Vereshchuk, called the head of the Zhovkva Regional State Administration, Stepan Tsiolkovsky, a clown. He went to court to protect his honor and business reputation.
The court ruled that it was an “exchange of remarks at a meeting” and dismissed the claim for protection of honor and dignity.
Iryna Vereshchuk sues Svoboda organization
The mayor of Rava-Ruska, Iryna Vereshchuk, has filed a lawsuit against the Zhovkva district organization of the Svoboda party. The mayor accuses the political force of disseminating false information on the official website of the Svoboda party on September 6, 2013, the press service of the Rava-Ruska City Council reported.
Almost the entire article, according to the mayor, is a set of distorted, unreliable, offensive statements and allegations about her that distort the actual development of events.
In particular, the article states that Svoboda members allegedly exposed the dealings of Iryna Vereshchuk and her relative, the deputy head of the land commission, around the distribution of land plots in Rava-Ruska. Representatives of Svoboda also stated that the mayor of Rava-Ruska forced the deputies to vote for an illegal decision, namely, to provide 139 plots in a package, while the people themselves were not given decisions on their receipt.
Vereshchuk embarrassed herself in front of journalists
Iryna Vereshchuk, a candidate for mayor of Kyiv from the Servant of the People party, was unable to answer a question about how to get to Priorka, one of the capital’s historic districts.
A journalist from Hromadske asked Iryna Vereshchuk how to get to Priorka, and she replied that she did not know, RegioNews reports.
As you know, Priorka is a historic area in the north of Kyiv, which continues Kurenivka and borders Mostytsia, Windy Mountains, Minsk and Obolon.
As a reminder, Iryna Vereshchuk won the primaries among the candidates for mayor of Kyiv from the Servant of the People party.
Mary Poppins or Shapoklyak: Vereshchuk’s flight with a green umbrella over Kyiv was mocked online
Iryna Vereshchuk, a candidate for mayor of Kyiv from the Servant of the People party, was mocked online for allegedly filming a campaign commercial.
The video of Vereshchuk «flying» over Kyiv appeared on the Facebook page of Klitschko’s Gloves, RegioNews reports. The 6-second video shows Vereshchuk suspended on a rope over the pedestrian and bicycle bridge that connects Volodymyrska Hirka Park with the Arch of Friendship of Peoples in the capital.
Suspended in the air, the mayoral candidate in a yellow cloak is trying to hold a green umbrella like Mary Poppins, a character in the fairy tales of children’s writer Pamela Travers, a nanny who is a wizard.
This provoked a strong reaction from netizens. Some suggested that “soon all the greens will be hanging like this,” while others did not believe it was a deputy at first and thought it was the filming of a new video by Verka Serdiuchka.
Vereshchuk calls President Zelensky’s entourage cunts
Vereshchuk talks about the conflict with Tyshchenko over the lists of the “Servants of the People”
Kyiv mayoral candidate Iryna Vereshchuk said that she had a conflict with Mykola Tyshchenko, head of the city headquarters of the Servant of the People party, during the formation of the Kyiv City Council lists, in which President Zelensky had to intervene.
Iryna Vereshchuk said this in an interview with GORDON, RegioNews reports.
According to Vereshchuk, the disagreement with Tyshchenko occurred due to different approaches to the selection of candidates for deputies of the Kyiv City Council.
In addition, according to Vereshchuk, former Kyiv City Council member Denys Komarnytskyi (also called the «watchdog» for Kyiv) and Kyiv City Council member Alla Shlapak, who wanted to put their people on the list, were involved in the conflict. According to Vereshchuk, Volodymyr Zelenskyi took her side in this conflict:
It should be added that the “mayor” did not answer what quota Tishchenko’s people received on the list, saying only that “the result was not exactly what he (Tishchenko) wanted.”
Summary
Iryna Vereshchuk has shown herself to be so terrible as a mayor and as a deputy of Ukraine that people everywhere speak of her in the most offensive terms. Everyone knows the indisputable facts about her ties to Medvedchuk, bribes, and illegal land distribution. And people sincerely hope that very soon Iryna Andriyivna will leave politics and finally start a righteous life.