Oleksandr Hryhorovych Yakymenko ( uk, Олександр Григорович Якименко; born December 22, 1964, in Keila,

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

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Short bio
LIGA) is a Russian military pilot and a Ukraine public servant, former Head of the

Security Service of Ukraine The Security Service of Ukraine ( uk, Служба безпеки України, translit=Sluzhba bezpeky Ukrainy}) or SBU ( uk, СБУ, link=no) is the law enforcement authority and main intelligence and security agency of the Ukrainian ...

Biography

After graduation of the Military Aviation College for Pilots in Yeysk in 1986, he served in the

Soviet Armed Forces The Soviet Armed Forces, the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union and as the Red Army (, Вооружённые Силы Советского Союза), were the armed forces of the Russian SFSR (1917–1922), the Soviet Union (1922–1991), and th ...

and the

Armed Forces of Russia The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (, ), commonly referred to as the Russian Armed Forces, are the military forces of Russia. In terms of active-duty personnel, they are the world's fifth-largest military force, with at least two m ...

until 1998. At first Yakymenko was stationed in Choibalsan,

Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...

until withdrawal of the Soviet troops. Later he was relocated to Hvardiiske in

Crimea Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...

where in 1991-1998 he served in the Military Aviation Forces of

Black Sea Fleet Chernomorskiy flot , image = Great emblem of the Black Sea fleet.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Great emblem of the Black Sea fleet , dates = May 13, ...

(

Russian Federation Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

). In 1997 Yakymenko graduated the Gagarin Air Force Academy. There is no information about Yakymenko ever receiving

citizenship of Ukraine Ukrainian nationality law details the conditions by which a person holds nationality of Ukraine. The primary law governing these requirements is the law "On Citizenship of Ukraine", which came into force on 1 March 2001. Any person born to a Uk ...

. In 1998-99 he worked for a militarized security of the Donetsk State Aviation Company "Donetsk – SAU" (SAU is an abbreviation for Eastern Aviation Lines). In his official biography Yakymenko claims that he worked in the

in 1999 to 2007 in leading positions, yet does not disclose in what exactly and without any details. On 10 January 2013 in interview to ''Gazeta in Ukrainian'', Valentyn Nalyvaichenko stated that nobody in the

Ukrainian parliament The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine ( uk, Верхо́вна Ра́да Украї́ни, translit=, Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy, translation=Supreme Council of Ukraine, Ukrainian abbreviation ''ВРУ''), often simply Verkhovna Rada or just Rada, is the ...

knows the real biography of the SBU director. In 2007-08 Yakymenko was an advisor for internal security for one of the companies that are part of

System Capital Management System Capital Management or SCM ( uk, Систем Кепітал Менеджмент) is a major Ukrainian financial and industrial holding company established in 2000 in Donetsk in the east of the country and since 2014 headquartered in Kyi ...

. From 2008 to 2010 the official biography of Yakymenko states that he worked part time without any contracts and the biography does not specify where and for whom Yakymenko was working. Soon after election of Viktor Yanukovych the

President of Ukraine The president of Ukraine ( uk, Президент України, Prezydent Ukrainy) is the head of state of Ukraine. The president represents the nation in international relations, administers the foreign political activity of the state, condu ...

in 2010, Yakymenko was appointed the head of SBU in

Sevastopol Sevastopol (; uk, Севасто́поль, Sevastópolʹ, ; gkm, Σεβαστούπολις, Sevastoúpolis, ; crh, Акъя́р, Aqyár, ), sometimes written Sebastopol, is the largest city in Crimea, and a major port on the Black Sea ...

and a year later the head of SBU in

Donetsk Oblast The Donetsk Oblast ( ukr, Донецька область, Donetska oblast, ), also referred to as Donechchyna ( ukr, Донеччина, links=no), is an oblast of eastern Ukraine. It is Ukraine's most populous province, with around 4.1 mill ...

. During that time he was promoted to the rank of

Major General Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of a ...

of the

. In 2012 Yakymenko was appointed the First Deputy Director of SBU and in 2013 Yanukovych appointed him the Director of

without properly introducing him to the

. On February 19, 2014, on the website of SBU Yakymenko announced that

and Anti-Terrorist Center initiated an "anti-terrorist operation" against protesters of the

Euromaidan Euromaidan (; uk, Євромайдан, translit=Yevromaidan, lit=Euro Square, ), or the Maidan Uprising, was a wave of Political demonstration, demonstrations and civil unrest in Ukraine, which began on 21 November 2013 with large protes ...

. On February 20, 2014, on the streets of

Kyiv Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...

appeared snipers and special assigned units of

MVS Multiple Virtual Storage, more commonly called MVS, was the most commonly used operating system on the System/370 and System/390 IBM mainframe computers. IBM developed MVS, along with OS/VS1 and SVS, as a successor to OS/360. It is unrelated ...

and SBU. On February 22, 2014, the

installed a parliamentary commissioner to check the SBU activities, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko who the next day announced that all leadership of

quit. On February 24, 2014

officially relieved Yakymenko of his duties as a Director of

and on the proposition of the acting

appointed Nalyvaichenko in his place. A few days after the February

2014 Ukrainian revolution The Revolution of Dignity ( uk, Революція гідності, translit=Revoliutsiia hidnosti) also known as the Maidan Revolution or the Ukrainian Revolution,

Yakymenko with about 15 former SBU top officials surfaced in Russia. Yakymenko is wanted by the General Prosecutor of Ukraine, and he is believed to be hiding in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

.Ukraine accuses Russia of breaking CIS agreements over Yanukovych extradition

Interfax-Ukraine The Interfax-Ukraine ( uk, Інтерфакс-Україна) is a Kyiv-based Ukraine, Ukrainian independent news agency founded in 1992. The company does not belong to the Russian news corporation Interfax Information Services. The company pub ...

(12 January 2015)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yakymenko, Oleksandr 1964 births People from Keila Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic people Living people Estonian people of Ukrainian descent Estonian emigrants to Russia Directors of the Security Service of Ukraine Major generals of Ukraine Recipients of the Order of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, 3rd class Pro-government people of the Euromaidan Fugitives wanted by Ukraine Russian Navy personnel Russian expatriates in Ukraine Ukrainian defectors Russian individuals subject to the European Union sanctions

Biography

See also

References