Yuriy Lutsenko

Yuriy Vitaliyovych Lutsenko (Ukrainian: Юрій Віталійович Луценко; born 14 December 1964) is a Ukrainian politician, who served as Interior Minister and entered the Armed Forces during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. His most recent position was Prosecutor General of Ukraine (from 12 May 2016 until 29 August 2019). Lutsenko has been a long serving people's deputy in the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian parliament); first elected in 2002 and reelected in 2007 and 2014. Lutsenko was Minister of Internal Affairs in the two cabinets of Yulia Tymoshenko and in the cabinets of Yuriy Yekhanurov and Viktor Yanukovych. The Ministry of Internal Affairs is the Ukrainian police authority, and Lutsenko became the first civilian minister in February 2005. Lutsenko is also a former leader of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, and a former leader of its faction in the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament). In 2010, Lutsenko was charged with abuse of office and forgery by Prosecutor General of Ukraine Viktor Pshonka, in what was widely viewed as political retaliation for having investigated one of Yanukovych's cabinet members four years earlier. In 2012, he was sentenced to four years in prison, but was pardoned by Yanukovych in 2013. In 2016, he became Ukraine's chief prosecutor under President Petro Poroshenko, during which time he was criticized for undermining Ukraine's newly established National Anti-Corruption Bureau. While in office, Lutsenko became a central figure in the Trump–Ukraine scandal, in which he worked with U.S. President Donald Trump to try to find incriminating information on Trump's then-presumed opponent in the 2020 United States presidential election, Joe Biden. He was dismissed by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in 2019; Trump later tried unsuccessfully to pressure Zelenskyy to reinstate him. Following the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Lutsenko joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine and has taken part in several battles...