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Valeriy Viktorovych Heletey ( uk, Валерій Вікторович Гелетей) (born on 28 August 1967) is a Ukrainian Colonel General who served as Minister of Defense from 3 July to 14 October 2014.
Interfax-Ukraine The Interfax-Ukraine ( uk, Інтерфакс-Україна) is a Kyiv-based Ukrainian independent news agency founded in 1992. The company does not belong to the Russian news corporation Interfax Information Services. The company publishes i ...
(3 July 2014)


Biography

Born in Mukacheve Raion in the Zakarpattia Oblast, Heletey worked briefly as an electrical mechanic at a local truck company before being drafted into 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 ...
in 1985; he served in the
Soviet Border Troops The Soviet Border Troops (russian: Пограничные войска СССР, Pogranichnyye voyska SSSR) were the border guard of the Soviet Union, subordinated to the Soviet state security agency: first to the ''Cheka''/OGPU, then to NKV ...
. In March 1988 Heletey started a career in the police (
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 in 1994 graduated from the Ukrainian Academy of Internal Affairs (higher police academy) in Kyiv. After that he worked until 2006 for the police department, specializing in the fight against organized crime ( HUBOZ) for the city 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 ...
. In October 2006 Heletey as a Colonel was employed by the Presidential Administration, heading its service on issues of law-enforcement agencies. On 4 December 2006 he was promoted to the special rank of Major General of police. On 24 May 2007 Heletey became a chief of the
State Security Administration The State Security Service ( hr, Služba državne sigurnosti, sr, Служба државне безбедности; mk, Служба за државна безбедност; sl, Služba državne varnosti), also known by its original name ...
(UDO) that specializes in security of government officials. On 20 June 2007 Heletey was granted a military rank of Major General and on 21 August that year he was promoted to
Lieutenant General Lieutenant general (Lt Gen, LTG and similar) is a three-star military rank (NATO code OF-8) used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages, where the title of lieutenant general was held by the second-in-command on the ...
. On 20 August 2008 Heletey received another promotion: to the rank of
Colonel General Colonel general is a three- or four-star military rank used in some armies. It is particularly associated with Germany, where historically general officer ranks were one grade lower than in the Commonwealth and the United States, and was a r ...
. In July 2009 he was relieved from his position as UDO chief. On 2 March 2014 the acting president Of Ukraine
Oleksandr Turchynov Oleksandr Valentynovych Turchynov ( uk, Олександр Валентинович Турчинов; born 31 March 1964) is a Ukrainian politician, screenwriter, Baptist minister and economist. He is the former Secretary of the National Se ...
appointed Heletey as the UDO chief once again, replacing Serhiy Kulyk. On 2 July 2014 the newly-elected
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, cond ...
Petro Poroshenko Petro Oleksiyovych Poroshenko ( uk, Петро́ Олексі́йович Пороше́нко, ; born 26 September 1965) is a Ukrainian businessman and politician who served as the fifth president of Ukraine from 2014 to 2019. Poroshenko ser ...
proposed Heletey's candidacy for the post of the Minister of Defense, and next day (3 July) the
Verkhovna Rada 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 ...
(Ukraine's parliament) approved the proposal with the support of 260 of the 450 parliamentarians. During his maiden speech Heletey hinted that Ukraine would regain control of Crimea, lost during the
2014 Crimean Crisis In February and March 2014, Russia invaded and subsequently annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine. This event took place in the aftermath of the Revolution of Dignity and is part of the wider Russo-Ukrainian War. The events in Kyiv t ...
: "I am convinced that Ukraine will win, and trust me, a victory parade will certainly be held in a Ukrainian
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 ...
." At the end of August/beginning of September 2014 he wrote on his
Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...
page that the rebels had been defeated and Russia had been forced to begin a full-scale invasion of the region with regular forces, saying: "A great war has arrived at our doorstep - the likes of which Europe has not seen since World War Two. Unfortunately, the losses in such a war will be measured not in the hundreds but thousands and tens of thousands." On 1 September 2014 Newsweek reported that Heletei claimed on his Facebook page that Russia threatened Ukraine with nuclear attack if it won't stop fighting rebels. On 12 October 2014 Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko accepted Heletey's resignation, saying that it was time for a change in the country's defense leadership. After he was replaced by
National Guard of Ukraine The National Guard of Ukraine (NGU; uk, Націона́льна гва́рдія Украї́ни, Natsionalna hvardiia Ukrainy, , ) is the Ukrainian national gendarmerie and internal military force. It is part of the Ministry of Internal ...
commander Stepan Poltorak, Heletey was appointed head of the State Guard of Ukraine. On 20 October 2014, the Temporary Investigative Commission of
Verkhovna Rada 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 ...
( Ukrainian parliamentary inquiry into the Battle of Ilovaisk) published a report on events related to the "Ilovaisk's cauldron" where it acknowledged that the tragedy at Ilovaisk took place due to inadequate actions of the Defence Minister Heletey and the Chief of General Staff Muzhenko.
The intermediate report of the Temporary Investigative Commission in investigation of tragic events near Ilovaisk. Full text
'.
Ukrayinska Pravda ''Ukrainska Pravda'' ( uk, Українська правда, lit=Ukrainian Truth) is a Ukrainian online newspaper founded by Georgiy Gongadze on 16 April 2000 (the day of the Ukrainian constitutional referendum). Published mainly in Ukrain ...
. 20 October 2014.


References


External links


Profile
at the UDO official website *
Profile: Ukraine's new defence minister Valeriy Heletey
' at '' BBC News,'' 4 July 2014
Shufrych and Heletey exchanged hand shake instead of fight


* ttp://like.lb.ua/celebrities/2013/09/16/15986_baloga_zhenil_sina_dochke.html Baloha married his son a daughter of his colleague {{DEFAULTSORT:Heletey, Valeriy 1967 births Living people People from Zakarpattia Oblast Defence ministers of Ukraine Pro-Ukrainian people of the 2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine Ukrainian military personnel of the war in Donbas Colonel Generals of Ukraine Ukrainian people of Hungarian descent