Bondarenko Olena Anatoliivna
Biography.
Member of Parliament of the VII convocation from the Party of Regions.
She was born on May 26, 1974 in Makiivka, Donetsk region, in the family of miner Anatoliy Konovalenko and a nurse.
Education.
- In 1991, she entered Donetsk State University, Faculty of History. In the third year of her studies, she entered the journalism department of the Faculty of Related and Additional Specialties of the same university. In 1996, she graduated from both faculties.
- In 2004, she graduated from the Faculty of Administrative Management of the Donetsk State Academy of Management.
Family.
Married to Andriy Bondarenko (b. 1969), former Deputy Minister of Emergency Situations and Deputy Minister of Energy and Coal Industry. The couple has a daughter Polina (born in 1999) and a son Mykhailo (born in 2010).
Olena’s daughter Polina:
Olena Bondarenko with her husband:
Career.
- While still studying, from 1994 to 1995, she worked as a freelance correspondent for the local Donetsk weekly Donetskski Novyny. In 1995, she was promoted to the position of editor of the information service of the Ukraine TV and Radio Company, covering environmental issues and the activities of local authorities and party organizations.
- In 1998, she started working as a journalist at Inter-Seal, a regional branch of the Inter TV channel, and in the same year she was promoted to the position of editor of the information service of the New Donbass TV channel.
- In 1999, after the birth of her daughter, she interrupted her television career, but during her maternity leave, she wrote articles for the regional newspaper Zhyttia.
- In 2001, the regional organization of the Green Party invited Bondarenko to become its public spokesperson. After a few months of work, she was invited to join his team by Borys Kolesnikov, who was elected chairman of the Donetsk Regional Council and in 2003 headed the regional branch of the Party of Regions. At first she worked as his assistant, and in 2002 she became the head of the press service created at the regional council. During Kolesnikov’s arrest in 2005, she actively supported him and served as his assistant.
Politics.
- In the 2006 parliamentary elections, she was elected to the Rada under No. 125 on the Party of Regions list, was a member of the Committee on Freedom of Speech and Information, headed the subcommittee on advertising, and later became the first deputy chairman of the committee. She was a member of the Verkhovna Rada’s temporary investigative commissions to investigate the death of Georgiy Gongadze and to check the facts of corruption and abuse of office by certain officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
- In 2007, during the early parliamentary elections, she headed the communications department of the central election headquarters of the Party of Regions. She was elected to the Verkhovna Rada on the Party of Regions list, worked in the Committee on Freedom of Speech and Information, and headed the Subcommittee on Television and Radio Broadcasting.
- In 2011, she was elected president of the Association of Content Owners and Providers.
- In May 2012, she was appointed the official speaker of the Party of Regions. In the parliamentary elections of the same year, she was elected as a member of parliament from the Party of Regions (#47 on the list). She was the first deputy head of the Committee on Freedom of Speech and Information.
- She is a member of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine.
- Serhiy Kurchenko’s Ukrainian Media Holding (UMH) announced the appointment of Olena Bondarenko as the chairman of the supervisory board on September 26, 2014. She will replace Yuriy Rovensky, who left UMH in July. According to the law, Bondarenko will simultaneously resign as a member of the Verkhovna Rada.
- On April 1, 2015, Olena Bondarenko issued a press release announcing that she was resigning from the position of the chairman of the supervisory board of the Ukrainian Media Holding.
Compromising material
During the events of 2013-14, she strongly opposed Euromaidan, which she later called a coup d’etat. On January 16, 2014, she voted for the so-called “dictatorial laws”. Photos of Olena, like many other members of the Party of Regions, were posted on the Maidan with targets painted on their foreheads. Like many of her fellow party members, she was included in the Myrotvorets database.
Rating of Olena’s promises according to the website “Slovo i Dilo”:
On February 20, 2014, in an interview with the German media outlet Spiegel Online, she called the actions of the Ukrainian police insufficiently harsh. When asked by a journalist that some demonstrators had been shot in the head, she replied that there were no peaceful demonstrators left on the square, only vandals and armed extremists. She later said that her words had been heavily distorted during translation and that «violence is not an option.» After Euromaidan, she took part in Russian political shows, harshly criticizing the new government.
On September 26, 2014, Olena Bondarenko was appointed head of the supervisory board of UMH Ukrainian Media Holdings, which was established by Serhiy Kurchenko. He announced that he was leaving the post on April 1, 2015. Later, when asked by Dmytro Gordon, Olena said that “running a holding with incomplete financial or human resources means that it is impossible to be responsible for the final result.” “I was uncomfortable, I went.”
Recently, Elena Bondarenko has repeatedly reported threats to her from radical groups. In 2015, after the murder of Oleg Kalashnikov and journalist Olesya Buzina, who also appeared in the database “Peacemaker”, she took the threats as seriously as possible. And she appealed to the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov and he was provided with security.
As it turned out, the name of Olena Bondarenko was included in the “Peacemaker” database:
On September 26, 2014, Olena Bondarenko was appointed chairman of the supervisory board of Serhiy Kurchenko’s Ukrainian media holding UMH. However, already on April 1, 2015, he announced that he was leaving his post. Later, when asked about the reasons for her resignation in an interview with Dmitry Gordon, Olena said that “managing a holding where you do not have a full-fledged financial or personnel initiative means that you cannot be responsible for the final result. I felt uncomfortable, so I left.”
Olena Bondarenko has repeatedly reported threats against her from radicalized individuals. But after the murder in 2015 of her former fellow party member Oleh Kalashnikov and journalist Oles Buzyna, who were also listed in the Myrotvorets database, she took the threats very seriously. She appealed to Interior Minister Arsen Avakov and was provided with security.
Olena Bondarenko confirmed the fact that her name was in the Myrotvorets database:
In November 2016, he became the head of the Freedom of Speech Center, a non-governmental organization that helps political prisoners in Ukraine and promotes freedom of speech in the country.
Olena Bondarenko has repeatedly stated that there are five thousand political prisoners in Ukraine who were convicted for their beliefs. In 2018, Olena Bondarenko opened the School of Public Speaking «Win and Convince», where she, as a practicing coach, conducted an intensive course on public speaking.
During the 2019 presidential election, she campaigned for the candidacy of the deputy head of the Opposition Bloc Oleksandr Vilkul.
In the early parliamentary elections of 2019, Olena Bondarenko ran for the Verkhovna Rada in 131 majority constituencies in Mykolaiv region. She lost to the candidate of the presidential party “Servant of the People” Artem Chernomorov and took fourth place.
On January 15, 2021, Olena Bondarenko said on the Nash TV channel that the Ukrainian army in the east was used against its own people, and any military personnel who were there violated their oath. “Our Ukrainian army has been turned into a criminal. Anyone who wears the shoulder straps now is a criminal according to morality and the law.”
Anatoliy Shtefan, an officer of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, wrote on his Facebook page: “…if there is no reaction to such statements from the state and law enforcement agencies, the reaction will come from veterans and soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”
Euromaidan
After the events of Euromaidan on January 24, 2014, Bondarenko was banned from entering the United States because she was linked to “actions taken against protesters in November and December last year”. In an interview with Der Spiegel in mid-February 2014, Bondarenko defended the police’s actions against the demonstrators.
“Police actions are not tough enough” was the title of the article:
In February 2022, she rejoiced at the recognition of the fictional republics in the occupied territories of Donbas and Luhansk by Russia, and often broadcast propaganda narratives in pro-Russian media.
Another Russian propaganda from Bondarenko’s mouth:
And at the time of the Russian attack, she blamed Ukraine for it, further emphasizing Russia’s power with the metaphor of “bears” and “dens.”
In 2018-2022, she began methodically working with Russian propaganda messages on channels that were part of Medvedchuk’s sphere of influence.
After the war in Ukraine broke out (February 2022), Olena spent several weeks scouting the situation in the cities, after which gullible followers sent photos of shelling and destroyed infrastructure in the comments, despite the fact that this is prohibited.
Comments under Olena’s post:
Comments under Olena’s post:
- 2 лютого 2018 року в інтерв’ю війну на Сході України назвала «громадянською».
- З 26 вересня 2014 року — голова наглядової ради Українського медіахолдингу, яким до цього володів Сергій Курченко.
- 16 січня 2013 року голосувала за «диктаторські закони».
Була одним із 148 народних депутатів України, хто в червні 2013 року підписав Звернення депутатів від Партії регіонів і КПУ до польського Сейму з проханням «визнати Волинську трагедію геноцидом щодо польського населення і засудити злочинні діяння українських націоналістів».
З грудня 2012 — депутат Верховної Ради VII скликання від Партії регіонів (№ 47 у списку). Перший заступник голови парламентського комітету зі свободи слова та інформації. Автор проекту Закону про внесення змін до Закону України «Про телебачення і радіомовлення» (щодо приведення у відповідність із вимогами Європейської конвенції про транскордонне телебачення до програмної концепції мовлення), що скасовує норму, згідно з якою музичні твори українських авторів та виконавців повинні становити щонайменше 50 % загального обсягу мовлення.
При намірі студентів перейменувати Донецький університет іменем Героя України та випускника цього вишу Василя Стуса стала ініціатором антикампанії з найменування закладу іменем комуністичного лідера Володимира Дегтярьова.
Регіоналка Бондаренко проігнорувала вбивства журналістів:
- У 2006-2006 роках була помічницею депутата ВРУ Бондаренка Віктора Вікторовича.
- У 2005 — 2006 роках була помічницею депутата ВРУ Богатирьової Раїси Василівни.
- У 2001-2002 роках — помічник голови Донецької обласної ради, 2002-2006 — керівник прес-служби Донецької обласної ради.
Олійник, Бондаренко і Повалій. ЗМІ опублікували список із 24 нардепів, які поїхали в Держдуму
До Держдуми РФ із «миротворчим візитом» поїхали 24 народні депутати України з групи «За мир і стабільність». Список опублікував «Укрінформ», у розпорядження якого потрапив план розсадження українських гостей у залі російського парламенту 17 вересня.
Judging by the document, the Ukrainian delegation was seated in two rows (the first row is number 11 on the list). Ukrainian MP Volodymyr Oliynyk was seated in the center of the first row, opposite State Duma Speaker Sergey Naryshkin. In the front row, opposite the Russian MPs, there were mostly Party of Regions members. Most of the Communists were in the second row.
Representatives of the parliamentary group “For Peace and Stability” in the Verkhovna Rada are going to the Russian State Duma to establish a dialogue between the two countries’ parliamentarians. The deputies will also ask the State Duma to facilitate the return to Ukraine of former high-ranking officials Viktor Yanukovych, Serhiy Arbuzov and Oleksandr Klymenko. This was stated by the head of this group, Vitaliy Hrushevsky.
Moskal to Olena Bondarenko: Your Party of Regions has already spent us all
At a meeting of the parliamentary provisional investigative commission into the Maidan killings, Hennadiy Moskal had a quarrel with Olena Bondarenko.
MP of the Party of Regions Olena Bondarenko caused a scandal at a meeting of the parliamentary provisional investigatory commission to investigate the killings on Maidan, Channel 5 reports.
Hennadiy Moskal and Olena Bondarenko’s skirmish:
The head of the commission, Hennadiy Moskal, responded to the deputy in non-parliamentary terms: “Yanukovych is talking bullshit from there, and she is talking bullshit from here. And we have to listen to it all.”
Bondarenko tried to take the documents from Moskal and then left the meeting room.
Poroshenko yelled at Olena Bondarenko in the Rada
During the presentation of the new Defense Minister by Petro Poroshenko in the Verkhovna Rada, Party of Regions MP Olena Bondarenko shouted from her seat: “The army is killing children.” Poroshenko sharply raised his voice and said that he would not allow anyone to disgrace the Ukrainian army.
Tobacco and alcohol
According to the results of 2011, MP Olena Bondarenko was ranked fourth among the five largest tobacco and alcohol lobbyists, with 11 points. Civil society organizations remind that in 2011 she made efforts to weaken the text of draft law No. 5164 on a complete ban on cigarette advertising, claiming, contrary to scientific research and the provisions of the Framework Convention, that such a ban is allegedly ineffective in reducing smoking.
In June 2011, at a meeting of the Committee on Freedom of Speech and Information, she consistently supported a weakened version of Bill 5164, saying
“Consciously,” and notes that in October 2011, Bondarenko collected signatures of members of the Committee on Freedom of the Media under a letter addressed to Volodymyr Lytvyn asking him to approve a weakened version of Bill 5164 to ban tobacco advertising.
Russian pop
Initially, the Parliament decided to abandon the mandatory 50 percent quota for broadcasting music by Ukrainian authors on TV and radio stations. The corresponding bill by Olena Bondarenko (Party of Regions) was supported in the first reading by 240 MPs. According to the author of the document, musical compositions by Ukrainian authors or performers belong to the category of “European works”, so separate quotas cannot be set for them.
The public demanded that Yanukovych veto the bill proposed by Ukrainian MP Olena Bondarenko. According to the bill, the previous quotas for Ukrainian music on the air of radio stations were canceled. Prior to that, each radio station was obliged to air 50% of records by Ukrainian authors. Musicians’ opinion on this bill:
At a meeting of the Public Humanitarian Council on November 11, 2011, the president said that the adoption of this law was initiated by certain Ukrainian radio companies. According to Yanukovych, the draft law contains many gross legal errors and needs to be revised even before it can be passed. Under pressure from the public and MPs, Yanukovych stopped Bondarenko’s obviously anti-Ukrainian attack.
Scandals
Olena Bondarenko’s attempt to criticize the acclaimed novel The Black Crow by Ukrainian novelist Vasyl Shklyar and her statements that it “has no literary value” provoked an understandable reaction in academic and literary circles.
Let’s leave the talk of a beautiful woman defending someone’s rights as a member of parliament to the simpletons. First of all, she, like many others, was elected to the Parliament on closed lists. This means that she was elected not by the people, but by the stroke of her immediate patron’s pen. Secondly, she is absolutely unprepared for the activities of an ideological fighter, as she turns the Greek art of polemics into a banal kitchen squabble. As a result, she encounters an adequate response (in the person of Farion): we will shut you up.
Bondarenko’s skirmish with MPs:
До речі, пані Олена! Щоб не було двозначних тлумачень, пишу Вам послання російською. Точніше, тією мовою, що ми маємо на увазі під російською. «Великий і могутній» зник ще в тридцяті роки і про це невпинно твердять московські, пітерські та томські філологи. Та російська, на захист якої Ви виступаєте, суть мова «Дома-2», сленг офісного планктону, мат донецьких, харківських, московських вулиць. Загалом, «…типу того». Але автор занепокоєний тим, що деяких зворотів українською Ви, або будь-хто інший з вашого оточення, можете просто не зрозуміти. На кшталт того донецького смотрящого, призначеного згори в обласну раду центральної України. Побачивши в документації термін «підводка газопроводів до сіл», він поцікавився: «А ми тільки підводні газопроводи будуємо? Чи сушею теж проводимо?».
Загалом, як у відомому фільмі «Труднощі перекладу». Пишу «типа» російською мовою, щоб мене адекватно сприйняли. Згодні? Якщо ні, тоді можете відповісти письмово українською. Не сумніваюся, що Ви постараєтеся продемонструвати блискучі знання мови. Але про всяк випадок усе ж дайте тоді свою відповідь вичитати українському філологу.
…Вас вчили на журналіста? Ви певну частину життя пропрацювали в журналістиці? От і займайтеся тим, що Вам знайоме. А якщо Ви беретеся судити про епічний роман Василя Шкляра, то починати треба не з нерозумного підкреслення в тексті слів «жид» і «москаль». Перекресліть тоді вже всього «Тараса Бульбу» і поеми Тараса Шевченка, прозу Івана Франка, Івана Нечуя-Левицького… Але хіба це головне?.. — Микита Василенко, доктор філологічних наук, професор Київського національного університету імені Тараса Шевченка.
On April 21, 2011, during a live broadcast of the program «Republic with Anna Bezulyk», MP Olena Bondarenko decided to leave the studio. The reason, as reported in her blog on Ukrainska Pravda, was incompetence in preparing a story about the recent events in Chernivtsi and the host’s unwillingness to recognize the obvious unprofessionalism shown by the journalist in preparing the story. Viewers’ comments:
Channel 5 journalist Oleksandr Argat publicly apologized to Ms. Bondarenko for the mistake he made. “Instead of the word ‘member’, the sentence should have read ‘deputy’ of the Party of Regions. Then the meaning would have corresponded to the real state of affairs,” noted Oleksandr. Mykhailo Boichuk is not a member of the Party of Regions, he was the leader of its electoral list in the elections to the Zastavna district council and became a deputy of this council in the Party of Regions faction.
The host of “Respublika” Anna Bezulyk said in a comment to Telekrytyka that if there are factual inaccuracies in the program, the participants can refute them. “Yes, I am fully responsible for the program,” said Anna Bezulyk. “Olena Bondarenko had the opportunity to refute the inaccurate information, but instead she left.” According to Anna, it is too early to put an end to the story with Mr. Boychuk, in her opinion, this is a topic for a separate journalistic investigation.
Speaking about the situation in the studio, Olena Bondarenko wrote in her blog: “I don’t want to see bias in this story. I don’t want to see it as a “pay-to-play”. That’s all I want to say. At the same time, I don’t want professionals to make mistakes, to cover the mistakes of non-professionals. Aggressiveness in the behavior of a presenter deserves to be judged by the audience. And conscience, which is our main judge.”
One of the guests of the program, Valeriy Kalnysh, editor of the political section of the Ukrainian Kommersant newspaper, also commented on the incident. He wrote on his Facebook page: “Anna Bezulyk is the most professional host. That’s all”.
On September 23, 2011, Vitaliy Portnikov stopped Olena Bondarenko, who was chanting, at Savik Schuchter’s talk show: “This is rudeness!” — with the remark “I’ll tell you about that, too, how you became a press secretary…”
The blue princess of oral jeans
A charming, sophisticated woman is a true icon of political prostitution.
Viewers’ opinion of Olena Bondarenko. Most people who love her often have pro-Russian views, or in common parlance, “vatniks”.
На обличчі — відчай тому, що доля підготувала для неї таку місію — захищати очевидне зло. Однак дивіденди від участі в цій непристойній оборудці з ошуканства простих людей, змушують її подумати про майбутнє своїх дітей і віддатися справі ПР.
Підкуп виборців
Olena Bondarenko, a candidate from the Opposition Bloc, organized concerts of the VIA «Pesnyary» in Veselynove and Berezanka, Mykolaiv region. Olena Bondarenko treated pensioners to pizza.
Opposition bloc candidate Olena Bondarenko treated pensioners to pizza in Voznesensk, Mykolaiv region.
Button-making
The CHESNO portal published a photo in which Olena Bondarenko was seen pushing buttons:
Conclusion
Olena Bondarenko actively tried to destroy Ukrainian culture by promoting the beliefs of the “Russian world” and even tried to eradicate Ukrainian music by abolishing quotas on radio stations, but she failed. To this day, Olena defends Russia’s interests and does not consider it an aggressor. She has also openly stated that the soldiers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces are murderers of the Ukrainian people.