Pavlo Lazarenko

Pavlo Lazarenko
Павло Лазаренко
Official portrait, 1998
5th Prime Minister of Ukraine
In office 28 May 1996 – 2 July 1997
President	Leonid Kuchma
Preceded by	Yevhen Marchuk
Succeeded by	Valeriy Pustovoitenko
First Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine
In office 5 September 1995 – 28 May 1996
Prime Minister	Yevhen Marchuk
Preceded by	Viktor Pynzenyk
Succeeded by	Vasyl Durdynets
Governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast
In office March 1992 – June 1994
President	Leonid Kravchuk
Preceded by	Mykola Zadoya
Succeeded by	Mykola Derkach
Chairman of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Council
In office 26 June 1994 – 14 May 1998
Preceded by	Viktor Bogatyr
Succeeded by	Eduard Dubinin
People's Deputy of Ukraine
In office 15 May 1990 – 18 June 1992
Constituency	Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, No. 107
In office 24 July 1994 – 7 February 2002
Constituency	Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, No. 105 (1994–1998) Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, No. 40 (1998–2002)
Personal details
Born	(1953-01-23) 23 January 1953 (age 71) Karpivka, Shyroke Raion, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union (now Ukraine)
Political party	Hromada (1994–2002)
Other political affiliations	CPSU (1985–1991)
Spouse	Tamara[1]
Children	6[1]
Military service
Allegiance	Soviet Union
Branch/service	Soviet Army
Years of service	1971–1973

Pavlo Ivanovych Lazarenko (Ukrainian: Павло Іванович Лазаренко; 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.