Pavlo Ivanovych Lazarenko (, ; born 23 January 1953) is a Ukrainian convicted criminal, international fugitive, and a former politician who served as Prime Minister of Ukraine from 1996 to 1997.
Born in 1953 to a peasant family in southern Ukraine, Lazarenko was active in agricultural activities before joining politics in the late 1980s. Originally Governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Lazarenko was in 1995 made First Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine for energy affairs, placing him in charge of acquiring energy from foreign countries. Less than a year later, he was appointed by President Leonid Kuchma as prime minister, serving for just over a year before being replaced by Valeriy Pustovoitenko on 2 July 1997.
Lazarenko's time as prime minister and subsequent trials have established him as one of the most corrupt, authoritarian, and unpopular politicians in Ukrainian history. According to United Nations reports, Lazarenko stole around $200 million from the Ukrainian government. Following his 1999 flight from Ukraine, Lazarenko fled to the United States, where he was subsequently tried for extortion, money laundering, and wire fraud, and sentenced. Since 1999, he has been living in exile in the United States due to criminal charges against him in Ukraine.
Early life and career
Birth and family Pavlo Lazarenko was born in the village of Karpivka (located near Kryvyi Rih) on 23 January 1953 into a family of peasant farmers. His father, Ivan Tryfonovych Lazarenko, was born in 1926 in the village of Hnidyn, near Kyiv. Following Ivan's birth, the family moved to what is now Kherson Oblast, where they worked as farmers. In 1932, the family Lazarenko family moved again to Karpivka, where Pavlo would be born. Pavlo's grandfather, Tryfon Lazarenko, joined the Red Army in 1944 and was killed during World War II. After the war, Ivan established a farm in Karpivka, where Pavlo was born.
Early career In 1970, Pavlo got a job as a driver in the kolkhoz "Zoria Komunizma" (Dawn of Communism), in Shyroke Raion. From May 1971 to June 1973, Lazarenko served in the Soviet Army, on the border with Afghanistan.
After his military service, from 1973 to 1978 Lazarenko studied at the in the Agronomic Department. After graduating, Lazarenko was recognised as an agronomist. From 1978 to 1983, he worked variously as agronomist, chief agronomist, and head of kolkhoz administration in the Kalinin kolkhoz in Novomoskovsk Raion.
In 1984, Lazarenko was appointed a head of agricultural department of Tsarychanka Raion. From 1985 to 1987 he worked as a Communist Party functionary in Tsarychanka Raion, and from 1987 to 1990, Lazarenko worked for the Communist Party of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast in agricultural production and food industry sectors. In February 1990, he was elected as head of Agro-Industrial Complex of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.
Governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast In August 1991, shortly following the Declaration of Independence of Ukraine, Lazarenko was chosen as First Deputy Governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.
In March 1992, President of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk appointed Lazarenko as Governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. Lazarenko's candidacy was nominated by the council of working groups conference of the Dnipropetrovsk State Agrarian University, whose decision was supported by over 200 groups. Leonid Kuchma, then a People's Deputy, at that time proposed Valeriy Pustovoitenko, who would also later become prime minister.
Lazarenko remained as Governor until June 1994. Although he sided with incumbent Kravchuk in the 1994 Ukrainian presidential election, he managed to establish close ties with the election winner, Leonid Kuchma.
First Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine At the recommendation of the Prime Minister of Ukraine Yevhen Marchuk, Kuchma appointed Lazarenko the First Vice Prime Minister for Energy Affairs on 5 September 1995.Rutland, 173 As the government official in energy affairs, he was charged with a task of negotiating gas supplies with Russia and Turkmenistan. Already next year in 1996, Ukraine reported no debts to the Russian Gazprom for the first since its independence. In 1996 Lazarenko became Doctor of Economic Sciences.
Prime Minister of Ukraine
On 28 May 1996, Kuchma confirmed Lazarenko as the Prime Minister of Ukraine within the powers stipulated by the existing "Constitutional Agreement". On 10 July 1996, less than two weeks after adopting a new Constitution of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada approved the appointment of Lazarenko as prime minister.
On 16 July 1996, Lazarenko survived an attempt on his life when a bomb exploded near his blocked car en route from Kyiv to Boryspil airport.Kolomayets, Marta. "Lazarenko escapes assassination attempt." Ukrainian Weekly, 21 July 1996, (Accessed: 25 August 2006)
Conflict with the Donetsk Clan and murders of opponents Lazarenko was involved in a prolonged and bitter struggle for economic domination with the emerging Donetsk Clan, an industrial and political group based in Donetsk and led by Viktor Yanukovych.
Lazarenko has been linked to the deaths of several of his political opponents, though he has repeatedly denied his involvement in any assassinations. On 3 November 1996, Yevhen Shcherban, a prominent member of the Verkhovna Rada and natural gas executive, was murdered at Donetsk Airport, a few months after the assassination attempt on Lazarenko, which some media sources accused Shcherban of having a role in."Ukraine Tycoon Shot Dead." The New York Times, 5 November 1996 (Accessed:26 August 2006)Taylor: Firtash blames notorious 1996 murder on ex-premier Lazarenko, Kyiv Post (December 3, 2010)The clan from Donetsk PART I , The Ukrainian Weekly (January 12, 2003)
Following his departure from the office of prime minister, Lazarenko also allegedly ordered the assassination of Vadym Hetman, an independent People's Deputy who had been active in economic reform efforts.
Privatisation
While in charge of the Cabinet, Lazarenko reportedly exercised control over many lucrative business projects and speculatively charged 50 percent of profits for his patronage. At that time, he maintained a close business relationship with Yulia Tymoshenko, then the CEO of United Energy Systems of Ukraine, a monopoly that imported Russian natural gas. Forbes described Lazarenko and Tymoshenko as "the Ukrainian Bonnie and Clyde" for their theft of money in the oil and gas sector.Annual Survey of Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union 1997: The Challenge of Integration by Peter Rutland, M.E. Sharpe, 1998, / (page 174)
He may have also plotted against Oleksandr Volkov, a close associate of President Kuchma. Reportedly, Volkov became aware of the planned assassination and made a phone call to Lazarenko threatening appropriate revenge.
Corruption According to a report by the United Nations, approximately $200,000,000 was looted by Lazarenko from the government of Ukraine during his tenure in office.Kravets, David. "Former Ukraine leader ordered to prison." Associated Press, 25 August 2006, (Accessed: 4 November 2013
Lazarenko is reported to have abused his official authority as Prime Minister of Ukraine to extort nearly 50% of businessman Peter Kiritchenko's $60 million in profits. Lazarenko then ordered him to assist in laundering the proceeds to accounts in Poland, Switzerland, Antigua, and eventually in the United States, where a shell company was used to conceal his property purchases. Kiritchenko pleaded guilty to one count of receipt of stolen property and agreed to testify against Lazarenko.
In 1998, he made unlawful transfers of $2.3 million from one Dugsbery account at WestAmerica Bank, which can be traced back to Mr. Lazarenko's Lady Lake bank account in the Bahamas, to an account at Bank Boston Robertson Stevens. Both the funds in this account and those in a San Francisco EuroFed can be traced back to Lazarenko's CARPO-53 account, where he deposited funds from the Naukovy fraud and from his extortion of Mr. Kiritchenko's funds. In total, Lazarenko was found to have laundered over $15 million from his Swiss bank account which ultimately ended up in Kiritchenko's EuroFed accounts in San Francisco. A Geneva court in June 2000 tried and convicted Lazarenko in absentia for laundering $6.6 million in illicit proceeds.
In a special investigative report conducted by Kelly Carr and Brian Grow, two Reuters journalists, it is stated that Lazarenko "was once ranked the eighth-most corrupt official in the world by watchdog group Transparency International" and that "Court records submitted in Lazarenko's criminal case and documents from a separate civil lawsuit, as well as interviews with lawyers familiar with the matter, indicate Lazarenko controls a shelf company incorporated in Cheyenne that owns an estimated $72 million in real estate in Ukraine through other companies". Lazarenko's shelf corporation is reportedly named Capital Investments Group.
He acquired the majority of his illegal funds through his activities in the gas and energy sector of Ukraine, both as Vice Prime Minister for Energy Affairs and as prime minister. He was reported by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to have been guilty of money laundering in the United States, and has routinely been on Transparency International's lists of most corrupt officials.
In the 2004 Global Corruption Report, Lazarenko made it into the list of the World's Most Corrupt Leaders. He was listed eighth, and was said to have amassed between $114 million to $200 million.
Fall from power By mid-1997, Lazarenko had fallen out of favour with Kuchma, who suspected him of making plans to run for president in the 1999 Ukrainian presidential election. Kuchma later regretted Lazarenko's appointment as his "gravest mistake".
Lazarenko, who had no previous record of serious illness, was unexpectedly hospitalised in late June 1997. It has been alleged that he spent the two weeks of the leave for the sickness in vain attempts to mend fences with Kuchma. Technically, under the Ukrainian labour code law, a hospitalized individual may not be terminated from his position. However, when his dismissal became imminent, Lazarenko resigned on 2 July 1997, on his own initiative.
In the 1998 Ukrainian parliamentary election, he was once again elected to the Verkhovna Rada from electoral district No. 40 of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast as part of Hromada party. In the Verkhovna Rada, Lazarenko became a leader of the Hromada parliamentary faction. Hromada frequently sided with Socialist Party of Ukraine of Oleksandr Moroz.
Flight from Ukraine and criminal charges In December 1998, Lazarenko was arrested in Basel, Switzerland as he entered the country on a Panamanian passport. Lazarenko was charged with money laundering, and indicted. However, he was released on bail shortly afterwards, and fled Europe to the United States in 1999, fearing retribution from Kuchma after his fall from grace.
In February 1999, shortly after arriving in the United States, Lazarenko was again arrested, this time on charges of visa irregularities. This case soon expanded to cover Lazarenko's various crimes, and he was eventually convicted of extortion, money laundering, and wire fraud in 2004, and sentenced to 9 years in federal prison on 25 August 2006.