Azarov Nikolai Yanovich Mykola Azarov: biography, photo, nationality Azarov Nikolay Yanovich in contact
Mykola Yanovich Azarov is a Ukrainian political and statesman. Chairman of the Committee for the Salvation of Ukraine.
Mykola Azarov was born on December 17, 1947. In 1971 he graduated from the Moscow State University. M. Lomonosov, specialty geologist-geophysicist. Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences (1986), Professor (1991), Corresponding Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (1997). Member of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of several convocations.
14th Prime Minister of Ukraine. Held the position from March 11, 2010 to January 28, 2014. Longer than all his predecessors, he worked as head of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. He resigned of his own accord. Twice he served as Prime Minister of Ukraine - from 01/05/2005 to 01/24/2005.
Twice he served as First Vice Prime Minister, combining these duties with the post of Minister of Finance of Ukraine - from 2002 to 2005 and from 2006 to 2007. He was the first head of the State Tax Administration of Ukraine in 1996-2002. He was the organizer and chairman of the budget committee of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in 1994-1997.
Mykola Azarov has always been closely associated with the Donbass. From 1984 to 1995 he worked as a deputy, and later director of the Ukrainian State Research Institute of Mining Geology, Geomechanics and Mine Surveying.
In the 1990s, he was a member of the Movement for the Revival of Donbass, one of the leaders of the Civil Congress of Ukraine, created in Donetsk.
Targets and goals
The Committee for the Salvation of Ukraine, headed by former Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, is a socio-political organization that unites opponents of the current government in Ukraine both within the country and abroad. The creation of the Constitutional Court was a response to the unconstitutional seizure of power in the country, the unleashed campaign of political repression against dissidents, the persecution of all opponents of the current regime, the curtailment of all democratic rights and freedoms, primarily freedom of speech and political assembly, the unleashing of a civil war in the Donbass, the creation of virtually uncontrolled the power of paramilitary organizations and punitive battalions to terrorize and intimidate the population, reprisals against opponents of the regime. The CCU has prepared a minimum program of five points:
As a first step, the KSU calls for an immediate end to the war. “On the basis of Article 60 of the Constitution of Ukraine, do not carry out the criminal decisions of this government, carry out acts of civil disobedience! Organize rallies, pickets, strikes and other peaceful protests! Do not let children go to war, just as the current rulers do not let their own!
The second step is to adopt a new Constitution of Ukraine, in which to consolidate the federal structure, Ukrainian and Russian languages as state and neutral status.
The third step is the disarmament of bandit formations and an end to rampant banditry: “We need to remove balaclavas and return a human face to the country. We will find and punish those who shot the Maidan, burned Odessa and unleashed a fratricidal war in the Donbass. We call on all judges, prosecutors, employees of the SBU, the police, and the army who are loyal to the oath and the people not to persecute people for their beliefs.”
Mykola Azarov (born December 17, 1947) is a Ukrainian politician who was the Prime Minister of Ukraine from 2010 to January 27, 2014. Prior to that, he was twice First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, and even earlier, he headed the tax administration of Ukraine for more than five years.
Azarov Nikolai Yanovich: biography, nationality
It would seem that such an irrelevant question at the present time of universal globalization of how the nationality of a person, as applied to the hero of our article, suddenly acquired a special urgency. Why is it so interesting for many to know what is the nationality of Azarov Nikolai Yanovich? The fact is that he labored in the political arena in Ukraine, a very young country, where this issue has become particularly acute in recent years.
So, where did Azarov Nikolay Yanovich start his life? His biography began in Kaluga, a native Russian city. Where, then, did he get such a patronymic, Yanovich? The fact is that his paternal grandfather was an Estonian named Robert Pakhlo, all other relatives (at least in two generations) are primordially Russian people. According to Azarov himself, made in the program of the famous TV presenter Vladimir Pozner, he was born out of wedlock to his parents, Yan Pakhlo (a Leningrader by birth and a front-line soldier) and Ekaterina Azarova (later married to Kvasnikova). Therefore, at his birth, the mother recorded little Kolya in her maiden name, under which he is now known to us.
In the same program of Vladimir Pozner, recorded in the summer of 2012, to the question of the presenter, what is the nationality of Mykola Azarov, he answered the following: “I am a Russian person, but I have been living in Ukraine for 28 years. Of course, I already feel like a Ukrainian, that is, a citizen of Ukraine.” It will take another year and a half, and the so-called "svіdomі ukraintsі" will very intelligibly explain to Azarov that between the concepts of "Ukrainian" and "citizen of Ukraine" there is an abyss, which, in their understanding, no merits and past years will not close.
Childhood and years of study
As far as can be understood from Mykola Azarov's recently published book "Ukraine at the Crossroads", his parents tried to establish a life together, and the family even lived for some time in Leningrad in the apartment of his father's parents. But apparently something went wrong in their family life, and Ekaterina Azarova returned with little Kolya to her parents in Kaluga. There she graduated from the railway technical school and subsequently worked in the management of the railway.
Grandmother Maria Azarova had a particularly strong influence on our hero in childhood, apparently one of those Russian women who are able to give love and care to loved ones in any, the most difficult conditions. We can say that thanks to her care, mother's love, their numerous Kaluga relatives (one of the suburbs of Kaluga is even called Azarovo), Nikolai's childhood was quite prosperous. He studied well at school, repeatedly won olympiads in various subjects, was even invited to the special school of Academician Kolmogorov at Moscow State University, but refused to enter it, because he was not attracted to her mathematical direction.
Azarov graduated from high school with a silver medal, and then went to "conquer the capital." He entered the Moscow State University at the Faculty of Geology. Student years passed as expected, but there was one episode that Azarov especially notes in his memoirs. We are talking about an incident related to a street fight between Nikolai and his friend with a group of hooligans who attacked a girl. The policemen, who arrived at the scene of the incident, without hesitation, stunned Nikolai with a blow of a baton on the head, and then in the department they began to “sew a case of hooliganism”. Fortunately for him, late at night, a police lieutenant drove into the department, who figured out everything and let Nikolai and his comrade go. Why Azarov highlights this, in general, an unobtrusive episode of his life. The fact is that once his future patron Viktor Yanukovych found himself in the same situation, but it was not in Moscow, but in Yenvakiyevo, and there was no thoughtful lieutenant in the department. Therefore, as Azarov writes, he "understands the mistakes of Viktor Yanukovych's youth."
Having received the qualification of a geologist-geophysicist after graduating from Moscow State University, Nikolay Azarov in 1971, by distribution, got to the Tulaugol coal plant, where in five years he worked his way up to the chief engineer of the Tulashakhtoosushchenie trust. He proved himself to be a real innovator, going from practice, made a considerable contribution to the theory of studying coal seams. Passion for mining science led to the fact that in 1976 Azarov Nikolai Yanovich left production for branch science. First, he works as a head of a laboratory in an industry research institute in the city of Novomoskovsk, Tula Region, and defends his Ph.D. thesis. Soon he becomes the head of the department in the same research institute.
A young and promising candidate of geological sciences is becoming crowded at his native institute, he needs a new field for applying his mature scientific knowledge. And he can do business in the Donbass, where Azarov is offered the position of deputy director of the Ukrainian Research Institute of Mining Geology. In 1984 he comes to Donetsk. The move did him good as a scientist. A couple of years later, Azarov Nikolai Yanovich completes and defends his doctoral dissertation in mine geophysics, and soon after that becomes the director of the institute. He works hard and fruitfully, his monograph on the geology of gold deposits in Donbass is widely known in scientific circles. In 1991, Mykola Azarov also became a professor at the Department of Geology at Donetsk Technical University.
Start of political activity
During the period of perestroika and liberalization of the political system of the USSR, Mykola Azarov, of course, did not stay away from the main processes. He, as the director of the branch research institute, actively supports the reformist wing in the CPSU (the so-called "Democratic platform"), while in 1990 he was considered by the party leadership as one of the candidates for the post of leader of the Donetsk communists (Pyotr Symonenko was preferred). In the same year, he became a delegate to the XXVII Congress of the CPSU, where he met Leonid Kuchma, later his long-term patron. Obviously, due to the nature of his activity, Azarov had the opportunity to get acquainted with the leaders of the largest coal mining enterprises in Donbass, the so-called. "coal barons", who will soon become his partners in new political projects.
The first political projects with the participation of Azarov in independent Ukraine
Shortly after the collapse of the USSR and the creation of the CIS, a group of Russian-born intellectuals living in Ukraine from Kharkiv and Donetsk created a socio-political organization, the Civil Congress of Ukraine (GKU), which aimed to transform the rather “loose” CIS into a more cohesive Eurasian Union. Among the founders of the congress were Mykola Azarov, Oleksandr Bazilyuk from Donetsk State University, and Valery Meshcheryakov, a history teacher from Kharkiv State University. The captains of the industry of Donbass began to look closely at the organization, by that time they had already created their own organization - the Interregional Association of Ukraine. Under its influence, on the basis of the GKU, in December 1992, the Party of Labor was formed in Donetsk, headed by the director of the Donetsk Electrobytmash plant (later the Nord concern) Valentin Landyk, and his deputy - Azarov. It was a time of tough confrontation between Prime Minister Leonid Kuchma, who is striving to limit the traditional subsidizing of Donbass mines from the state budget, and leaders of the Donetsk industry. Powerful miners' strikes and miners' marches on Kyiv organized by the former "red directors" forced President Kravchuk to dismiss the prime minister. His place was taken by the head of the Donetsk city council and the city executive committee, in the recent past, the director of the largest mine in Donetsk named after. Zasyadko Efim Zvyagilsky. Soon, Landyk left for Kyiv to take the position of deputy prime minister in his government, and Mykola Azarov headed the Labor Party, which was the political backbone of the Zvyagilsky government.
Parliamentary career
In 1994, Azarov was elected a member of the Verkhovna Rada from the Labor Party. In the same year, he becomes president after early elections and starts a new war against the "Donetsk". Zvyagilsky flees from his persecution in Israel, but Azarov has nowhere to run. And he decides to change his political leanings and join the pro-presidential Interregional Deputy Group. His loyalty was appreciated and in 1995-1996 he became head of the parliamentary budget committee. The new president was in dire need of qualified personnel for the new Ukrainian state machine he was creating on the ruins of the old Soviet administrative system. In 1996, he offers Azarov to become chairman of the newly created State Tax Administration of Ukraine.
Head of the State Tax Administration
Of course, the new appointment captivated Azarov, because he had to create from scratch a huge in size and powers, and, moreover, a very specific civil service. And he took up this work with all his energy. The results were not long in coming. Already in the first year of his tenure in his new position, tax collections in the country increased one and a half times, while they began to be collected even from those sectors of the economy that had not paid them at all until then.
Of course, as the revenues of the Ukrainian state grew, so did the number of enemies of the chief tax official. He was accused of excessively strengthening the tax pressure, but Azarov countered these accusations by citing the fact that Ukrainian tax legislation complies with international standards, and those who are used to evading mandatory payments to the state protest the most.
Until 2000, Azarov worked in his position, having served several prime ministers, whom President Kuchma liked to change every year. At the same time, he even refused to participate in the 1998 parliamentary elections, preferring to engage in an already established business.
How Donbass changed in the 90s
While Azarov was in charge of the Ukrainian tax authorities from Kyiv, the processes of economic transformation were steadily going on in the Donbass, as a result of which the old elite, which consisted mainly of directors (since the Soviet era) of enterprises and mines, was gradually replaced by a new one, already generated by market relations. So-called. vertically integrated production concerns, which combined all the stages of traditional Donbass production: coal mining, coke production, metallurgical and chemical enterprises, trade and marketing divisions. Examples of them were the Industrial Union of Donbass, controlled by the Taruta-Gaiduk clan, and the System Capital Management holding, which was controlled by the Akhmetov-Yanukovych group. Using the favorable foreign economic situation at the end of the 1990s, they significantly increased the export of metal products, which allowed them to concentrate colossal capital in their hands.
New clash between "Donetsk" and "Kyiv"
This could not leave indifferent the central Ukrainian government, which since the early 1990s has sought to limit the basis for the existence of the economy of Donbass, which consisted in the old, still Soviet system of subsidizing unprofitable coal mining. The amount of annual subsidies from the state budget exceeded 10 billion hryvnias. Due to these subsidies, the selling price of coal was kept low on the market, which made it possible for coke producers, and then metallurgists, to reduce the cost of their products. By exporting it and paying taxes to the government, they ended up offsetting the original subsidies to the mines, so that the country ended up benefiting.
But this is a method of state regulation of the economy, originating in the socialist way of managing, where the goal was not the benefit of an individual enterprise, but the benefit of the whole country as a whole, which is called "infuriated" the adherents of the market economy, of which the Ukrainian elite mainly consisted. In 2000-2001, the government of Viktor Yushchenko made a new attempt to break the system of subsidizing mines in Donbass, and Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko became an active promoter of this policy.
How did Mykola Azarov, a politician, scientist and statesman behave in this situation? He took the side of his fellow countrymen, openly speaking out against the course of Yushchenko-Tymoshenko, who were guided by the British and American experience of reducing coal production, which led to the complete degradation of mining regions in these countries, like English Wales or mining towns in the American Appalachians.
Then Azarov managed to attract a number of major Ukrainian politicians to his side. In addition, Viktor Yushchenko's presidential ambitions alienated President Kuchma, who dismissed the Yushchenko-Tymoshenko government. But they created Our Ukraine and BYuT political forces in opposition to the president, and began to prepare for a struggle for power.
Creation of the Party of Regions and the beginning of joint work with Yanukovych
The opposite side did not sleep either. In November 2006, four political parties, of which the Donbas-based Regional Revival Party of Ukraine was the largest, announced their merger into the Labor Solidarity of Ukraine Regional Revival Party. In December Mykola Azarov also joined this party. In March of the following year, it became known as the Party of Regions, and our hero was elected its chairman.
Tellingly, Petro Poroshenko's Solidarity, which broke away from the pro-presidential Social Democratic Party, was among the founding parties. So the current president of Ukraine was one of the founders of the Party of Regions, which he now declares to be the culprit of all the troubles of his country (except Russia, of course). Moreover, for almost half a year he was Azarov's deputy, as the head of the party, but at the end of 2001 he defected, along with his Solidarity, to Yushchenko's Our Ukraine. This is such a remarkable political metamorphosis.
However, in fairness, it should be said that at the same time, Azarov himself left the leadership of the Party of Regions, remaining the head of the tax administration. Under his auspices, the electoral bloc "For a United Ukraine" (colloquially referred to as "For Food") with the participation of the Party of Regions was soon created, but in the parliamentary elections of 2002 he barely won 11% of the vote. However, the European Choice faction was created in the new parliament, which began to nominate Azarov for the post of prime minister. However, Kuchma made a choice in favor of the Donetsk governor Viktor Yanukovych, at the same time forcing through parliament the appointment of Azarov as first deputy prime minister. This is how this tandem of two politicians appeared, who unwittingly led Ukraine to the most severe crisis in its recent history.
First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance
In the first government of Yanukovych 2002-2004. Nikolai Yanovich combined the post of First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance. At the beginning of their joint work, they did not yet form a well-functioning tandem - their life experience and path to power were too different. Azarov was identified with the so-called. "old Donetsk", people from the Soviet nomenklatura. Yanukovych, on the other hand, personified the new elite of Donbass, which rose in the second half of the “dashing 90s” using semi-criminal methods of leadership and capital accumulation.
However, the Azarov-Yanukovych alliance soon proved its effectiveness. During the first government of Yanukovych, Azarov, first of all, implemented a set of economic reforms, including budgetary, tax, pension, etc. During Azarov's first term as Minister of Finance, annual GDP growth in Ukraine was 9.6% in 2003 .1% in 2004 (against 2.7% in 2005) with the level of capital investments 31.3% and 28.0% respectively (against 1.9% in 2005).
At that time, Azarov advocated closer ties with Russia, for the creation of a Common Economic Space between both countries, and even actively got rid of opponents of such a rapprochement, such as Economy Minister Valery Khoroshkovsky or the head of the State Committee for Entrepreneurship. If Yanukovych could retain power after the presidential elections he had already won in winter 2004-2005, then these plans would certainly have come true, but the “orange” revolution inspired from the outside crossed them out.
In December 2004 and January 2005, Azarov acted as prime minister until his appointment to this post. They say that handing over the keys to the office to her, he half-jokingly half-seriously asked her "not to touch anything with your hands, since everything is working so well." It is a pity that his successor did not take advantage of this practical advice.
However, the history of Ukraine developed in such a way that Mykola Azarov returned to the post of First Deputy Prime Minister two years later. His biography again repeated the events of two years ago after the 2006 parliamentary elections, when Yanukovych again became prime minister. This period was characterized by a sharp political struggle between President Yushchenko, supported in parliament by the Our Ukraine and Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc factions, and the Yanukovych-Azarov tandem, supported in parliament by the factions of the Party of Regions, the Socialist and Communist parties. As a result, the president dissolved the Verkhovna Rada in the spring of 2007 and scheduled early elections for autumn, as a result of which Yulia Tymoshenko's government came to power at the end of the year.
The prime minister turned exile
After her election as President of Ukraine in February 2010, Viktor Yanukovych, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko campaigned among the deputies of the Verkhovna Rada for her support, but on March 3 of the same year, the parliament, which voted for her appointment a little more than two years ago, dismissed Tymoshenko's government . The newly elected president proposed three candidates for the post of prime minister: the well-known banker and businessman Sergei Tigipko (during the Soviet period, the first secretary of the Dnepropetrovsk regional committee of the Komsomol), the then member of the Our Ukraine faction Arseniy Yatsenyuk, and Azarov, who headed it Of the 343 legislators registered in the session hall , 242 voted in favor of the latter candidate, and Ukraine has a new Prime Minister Mykola Azarov.
In the next parliamentary elections in 2012, he was re-elected to parliament on the list of the Party of Regions, and Yanukovych appointed him for a new term as prime minister.
Mykola Azarov, pictured below during his two terms as prime minister, constantly lamented unfair gas prices for Ukraine under a contract signed with Gazprom in early 2009 by Yulia Tymoshenko on behalf of the Ukrainian government.
Then, during the acute phase of the global financial and economic crisis, when oil and gas prices were steadily declining, this contract seemed to the Ukrainian authorities to be unconditionally beneficial. But by 2012, oil prices again exceeded $100 per barrel, and, accordingly, the price of gas rose to almost $500 per thousand cubic meters. m. The Russian leadership did not really "lead" to Azarov's complaints, seeing that his government was pursuing a two-faced policy, on the one hand, talking about the desire to develop economic relations with Russia, and on the other hand, actively preparing an association agreement with the European Union. After an unequivocal message from the Russian president to stop all economic preferences for Ukraine in the event of joining such an association, Azarov backpedaled and suspended the development of relevant documents. But it was already too late. The population of Western and Central Ukraine, deceived by two years of intensified propaganda of the future benefits of European integration, considered themselves deceived and rebelled against the central government. This time, Azarov resigned on January 28, 2014 amid heavy unrest and Euromaidan protests.
After his resignation, he left Ukraine and for almost a year and a half did not communicate with the media, did not make any political statements, and did not influence the turbulent political processes in Ukraine and Donbass at all. He remained silent even when in the summer of 2014, Ukrainian air bombs and artillery shells began to explode on Donetsk and Lugansk lands, whose inhabitants refused to obey the Kyiv authorities, as the inhabitants of Galicia had done six months earlier. In Ukraine, Azarov has been declared a criminal subject to arrest and trial. Former comrades-in-arms in the Party of Regions, as if enlightened by the many post-revolutionary revelations of the crimes of the "Yanukovych-Azarov clique", expelled him from their ranks in absentia.
Finally, on August 3, 2015, Azarov announced in Moscow the creation of a "Committee for the Salvation of Ukraine", chaired by the well-known parliamentary speaker from the Party of Regions Volodymyr Oliynyk. Mykola Yanovich said that he could not name all the members of the committee, because some live in Ukraine , and it would be dangerous for them.However, since then, there has not been any noticeable political action from the newly created organization.
Biography
Nikolai Yanovich Azarov was born on December 17, 1947 in the city of Kaluga (Russia). The real name of Nikolai Yanovich is Pakhlo. There are two versions of the appearance of the surname Azarov: 1 - after the marriage with Lyudmila Azarova, Nikolai Yanovich took his wife's surname. 2 - Azarova is the surname of Nikolai Yanovich's grandmother.
Mykola Azarov graduated from school No. 5 in Kaluga with a silver medal. After that, in 1971, he received a higher education in the specialty geologist-geophysicist, graduating from the geological faculty of Moscow State University. M. V. Lomonosov. In 1986, Azarov was awarded the scientific degree Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences. In 1991, Mykola Yanovich became a professor, and since 1997, a corresponding member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
Career: Immediately after graduating, Azarov got a job at the Tulaugol plant. From 1971 to 1976, he served as head of the section, chief engineer of the plant. After that, he moved to work at the institute and from 1976 to 1984, Nikolai Azarov was the head of the laboratory, and later the head of the department of the Moscow Region Research and Design Coal Institute in Novomoskovsk (Tula Region, Russia).
In 1984, Azarov moved to a permanent place of residence in the Ukrainian SSR and got a job at the Ukrainian State Research and Design Institute of Mining Geology, Geomechanics and Mine Surveying in the city of Donetsk. He worked there until 1995 in the status of deputy director and director of the institute. He was a professor at the Department of Geology of DonNTU. In parallel with this, from the beginning of the 90s, Azarov took up political activity.
In 1990, he was a delegate to the XXVIII Congress of the CPSU, was a member of the Democratic Platform of the CPSU, which was in opposition to the party leadership. In 1991-1992 he was a member of the Movement for the revival of Donbass. From 1992 to 1994 he was a member of the leadership of the Civil Congress of Ukraine, created in Donetsk. In 1993-1994 he was acting. Chairman of the Labor Party. In 1994, he first entered the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (from the Petrovsky electoral district of Donetsk). In 1995-1997, he was the head of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Committee on Budget and a member of the Presidium of the Verkhovna Rada.
He was a member of the Interregional Deputy Group, which supported the President of Ukraine Kuchma. From 1995 to 1998 - Member of the Currency and Credit Council of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine From 1996 to 2002, also Head of the State Tax Administration of Ukraine; member of the coordinating council for financial sector issues; member of the National Council for the harmonization of the activities of national and regional bodies, as well as local self-government; member of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine. In 1997 he was also a member of the Supreme Economic Council of the President of Ukraine.
In 1998 - Member of the Commission on Regulation of the Food Market, Prices and Income of Agricultural Producers. In 1999, he was a member of the Coordinating Committee for Combating Corruption and Organized Crime under the President of Ukraine. Since November 2000 - Member of the Presidium of the Party of Regional Revival Labor Solidarity of Ukraine. On March 5, 2001, he headed the Party of Regions, and six months later he resigned from this position. In April 2003, at the 5th Congress of the Party of Regions, he was elected chairman of the political council.
Place of Birth. Education. Born in Kaluga (Russia). In 1971 he graduated from the Lomonosov Moscow State University with a degree in Geology and Geophysics. Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences (1986), Professor (1991), Corresponding Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (1997).
Career. After graduating from Moscow State University, in 1971-1976, the future politician worked at the Tulaugol plant. In 1976-1984. headed the laboratory, department of the Moscow Region Research and Design Coal Institute.
In 1984-1995 Azarov - Deputy Director, Director of the Ukrainian State Research and Design Institute of Mining Geology, Geomechanics and Mine Surveying of the Ministry of Coal Industry of Ukraine.
In 1994-1998 - People's Deputy of Ukraine II convocation, chairman of the budget committee of the Verkhovna Rada.
From 1996 to 2002 Azarov is the chairman of the State Tax Administration of Ukraine. In the same years, Azarov, as the head of the fiscal service, is a member of the Coordinating Council for Financial Sector Policy, the National Council for Coordinating the Activities of National and Regional Bodies and Local Self-Government, the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, the Currency and Credit Council of the Cabinet of Ministers, the Supreme Economic Council under the President Ukraine, the Interdepartmental Commission on Regulation of the Food Market, Prices and Income of Agricultural Producers, the Coordinating Committee for Combating Corruption and Organized Crime under the President.
From November 2002 to February 2005 Azarov holds the post of First Vice Prime Minister - Minister of Finance of Ukraine in the first government. He heads a number of government commissions and coordinating councils. Including the Commission on Ensuring the Timeliness and Completeness of Tax Payments and Repayment of Wage Arrears, Pensions, Scholarships and Other Social Payments; on privatization; on insolvency issues; Coordinating Council for the Creation of a Mortgage Lending System; on issues of corporate governance in joint-stock companies, etc. Acts as a coordinator of cooperation between the Ukrainian government and international financial organizations.
After being elected to parliament in the spring of 2006, he headed the budget committee. On August 4, 2006, he came to the Cabinet of Ministers of Yanukovych for the second time and again became First Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Finance.
November 2007 to March 2010 - People's Deputy of Ukraine of the VI convocation from. Minister of Finance in the shadow (opposition) government of Yanukovych.
Since March 2010 - Prime Minister of Ukraine.
After the parliamentary elections in the fall of 2012, Azarov's candidacy was again submitted by President Yanukovych for the post of head of government and approved by the deputies.
On November 21, 2013, the Ukrainian government led by Mykola Azarov ordered to suspend preparations for the conclusion of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU, which led to the Euromaidan.
On January 22, 2014, he called the rioters in the center of Kyiv terrorists who must answer for their actions.
On January 28, 2014, Azarov resigned from the post of prime minister, and on the same day, President Yanukovych accepted it. On February 27, 2014, he took the post of head of government.
A few hours after his resignation, Azarov flew on a private jet to Vienna. In the elite district of Vienna, there is a mansion that is registered to the son of Azarov. Azarov's family also lives there. According to the Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung, Azarov arrived in Austria and plans to stay there for a long time.
On March 6, 2014, the European Union and Canada announced that Mykola Azarov and his son Oleksiy were on the list of high-ranking Ukrainian officials against whom financial sanctions were imposed.
The Security Service of Ukraine put Mykola Azarov on the wanted list for committing a crime under Part 3 of Art. 365 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine ("abuse of power or official authority by a law enforcement officer, resulting in grave consequences").
Interpol refused to carry out a search for the former Ukrainian prime minister, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine states that Azarov has been put on not an international, but some kind of "interstate" wanted list.
After the resignation, Mykola Azarov left the territory of Ukraine and flew to Austria. Subsequently, Azarov and his family settled in Russia without renouncing Ukrainian citizenship.
In August 2015, together with other former high-ranking officials of Ukraine during the Yanukovych presidency, he founded "Committee for the Rescue of Ukraine", speaking from the standpoint of Russian propaganda.
Views and assessments. He actively criticized the "orange" governments and the sample of 2005-2006. for unsystematic, incompetent, failure of the developments of the Cabinet of Ministers of Yanukovych. He stated that the second government of Yanukovych will have to seriously work on the mistakes of the last two predecessors. After returning to the Cabinet of Ministers, he himself was subjected to harsh criticism from political opponents and a number of independent experts.
Azarov and the Party of Regions. It is ranked among the so-called "old Donetsk". Since April 2003, Azarov headed the political council of the Party of Regions. Until recently, he was considered one of the most influential members of this political force. Thus, it is no coincidence that he acted as one of the negotiators on the side of the regionals during the formation of a parliamentary coalition in the summer of 2006 and the settlement of the political crisis of 2007, at the peak of which the president issued two decrees to dissolve the Verkhovna Rada of the 5th convocation and hold early parliamentary elections.
In the spring of 2008, at the congress of the Party of Regions, Azarov, unlike a number of younger colleagues, did not get the post of deputy chairman. At the same time, he received a seat on the presidium of the political council of the PR and headed the central control commission of the party. However, some observers believe that the positions of the regional veteran have weakened recently.
However, in 2010, Azarov, along with the premier's chair, also took the post of head of the party, which was vacated after the election of Yanukovych as president of Ukraine.
Titles and awards. Honored Economist of Ukraine. Civil servant of the 1st rank, adviser of the Tax Service of the 1st rank, honorary worker of the Tax Service. He was awarded the orders "For Merit" of three degrees, Yaroslav the Wise of the 5th degree. Laureate of the State Prize of Ukraine.
Mykola Azarov is a well-known Ukrainian politician who, back in the mid-90s, became part of the political elite of Ukraine and held high-ranking positions at the helm of the country for more than 20 years.
He gained wide popularity all over the world in connection with the situation on the Euromaidan, which was organized due to the suspension of preparations for the conclusion of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU. At the moment, the politician has been put on the wanted list by the SBU for exceeding official powers during mass protests in Kyiv.
Childhood and youth
Azarov Nikolai Yanovich was born on December 17, 1947 in the native Russian city of Kaluga in the family of a mining engineer of Estonian origin Jan Pakhlo and a railway worker Ekaterina Azarova. The future prime minister of Ukraine became an illegitimate child of his parents, so at birth he was recorded in his mother's maiden name, which he still bears today.
Due to the complicated history at birth, the nationality of Mykola Azarov is still a question for many political scientists today. The politician himself calls himself a Russian man who lived on Ukrainian territory for 28 years and became a citizen of Ukraine. At the same time, he spent all his childhood and school years in his native Kaluga, where he was raised by his maternal grandmother, since his parents broke up almost immediately after the birth of Nikolai Yanovich.
In the Kaluga school number 5, the politician was almost an excellent student, so he managed to earn a silver medal and enter the Faculty of Geology at Moscow State University without any problems. From the walls of the university, he left the university as a geologist-physicist with honors, with whom he went to work in the coal industry and moved to Tula. At the Tulaugol plant, Azarov went from the head of the site to the chief engineer, and in 1976 he moved to branch science, becoming the head of the department at the Novomoskovsk Research Institute of the Branch Coal Industry.
In 1984, Nikolai Yanovich moved to the city of Donetsk in Ukraine, where he headed DonNTU. Then he defended his doctoral dissertation and became a doctor of geological and mineralogical sciences. In 1990, the biography of Mykola Azarov acquired a political direction, as, on the ruins of the USSR, he became actively involved in the project to revive an independent Ukraine and led the Labor Party in Donetsk, which included directors of the largest industrial enterprises in the southeast of the country.
Politics
Mykola Azarov's entry into big politics was marked by his acquaintance with the first Prime Minister of Ukraine, who later became his leader for many years. First, Nikolai Yanovich was elected a deputy to the Verkhovna Rada, and then became the head of the country's budget committee. At that time, he actively proved himself as a qualified specialist, for which he was entrusted with creating the State Tax Administration of Ukraine from scratch.
In the role of the chief tax officer, Azarov increased tax collections in the country by 1.5 times, which won him a whole army of "enemies". But this did not prevent him from retaining the entire STAU, which the government was strenuously trying to resubordinate to itself. In 2000, Mykola Yanovich became one of their founders and the sole head of the Party of Regions, which primarily represented the interests of Eastern Ukraine.
In 2002, Azarov was elected First Deputy Prime Minister and at the same time Minister of Finance of Ukraine in the first government, and in March 2010 he became the country's prime minister, who first of all, in his new post, reduced the number of government secretariats by half.
Mykola Azarov headed the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine in difficult times for the country. Then the gas conflict with Russia was in an acute phase, as a result of which the former prime minister went to prison. Despite the fact that at that time the whole world was in a difficult financial and economic crisis, as prime minister, Nikolai Yanovich boldly promised Ukrainians a decent life and bringing the country to a new level.
Azarov's plans were violated at the end of 2013, when the population of Ukraine rebelled against the central government due to the suspension of the European integration process, which included the introduction of a visa-free regime with the EU. Then Euromaidan was organized in Kyiv and on the main metropolitan square, which was the beginning of violent political processes in the country and.
In this regard, in January 2014, the Azarov government resigned in order to open up opportunities for a socio-political compromise and settlement of the situation in Ukraine. Then the ex-premier had to urgently fly to Vienna on a private plane, as criminal and political prosecution began behind him in Ukraine.
Personal life
The personal life of Mykola Azarov is more successful than his political career. He met his future wife Lyudmila in his student years and has not parted since then. Their wedding took place in 1967, and a few years later the first-born Alexei was born in the family, who became a successful businessman and part-time unofficial adviser to the ex-head of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych.
After the resignation of Mykola Azarov from the post of Prime Minister, his family fell under a series of EU sanctions with the freezing of all foreign assets and accounts in European banks. In January 2016, sanctions were partially lifted from the former head of the Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers and his son.
At the moment, according to information from open sources, Nikolai Yanovich lives in Russia for security reasons. He began to appear frequently in the media criticizing the current Ukrainian government, which led the country to the complete collapse and collapse of the economy.
After the "expulsion" from Ukraine, Mykola Azarov announced the creation of the "Committee for the Salvation of Ukraine", which, according to his idea, should create an alternative to the current Ukrainian government. Also in 2015, he wrote the book "Ukraine at the Crossroads", in which he outlined what actually happened in the country and caused one of the bloodiest conflicts in all of Europe.