Anatolii Hrytsenko

Anatoliy Stepanovych Hrytsenko (; born 25 October 1957) is a Ukrainian politician, independent deputy of the 7th Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada, former Minister of Defence, and member of the Our Ukraine political party and leader of the Civil Position party.

Education Hrytsenko graduated from Kyiv Higher Military Aviation Engineering School on 23 June 1979. On 10 December 1984 he was awarded a Candidate of Sciences (Ph.D.) degree from Kyiv Higher Military Aviation Engineering School. In 1993 Hrytsenko graduated from the Defense Language Institute of the United States Department of Defense. On 6 June 1994 he graduated from the Resident Program of the U.S. Air War College and on 30 October 1995 Hrytsenko graduated from the Academy of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Hrytsenko is author of more than 100 scientific papers published in Ukraine, Belgium, the Netherlands, United States, Germany and Switzerland.

Army career Hrytsenko served 25 years in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in combat units, as teacher at the military college and in staff positions in the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.

In 2007, when Hrytsenko was the Minister of Defense, a military hospital in Dnipropetrovsk was sold to a private company. After that, the former military facility was given to the Russian VTB Bank, which later received direct control over this hospital. Petro Poroshenko's commissioner for the peaceful settlement of the conflict in Donetsk and Lugansk Oblasts stated that "Today, in fact, the hospital where our guys are being treated belongs to the invader country." In October 2014, this information was confirmed by Valeriy Heletey who served as Minister of Defense at the time.

Hrytsenko resigned from his post as minister following a conflict with president Viktor Yushchenko, whom he accused of viewing the army property as "superfluous".

People's Deputy In the early 2007 parliamentary elections he was elected into the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's parliament) as number 4 on the party list of the pro-president Yushchenko Our Ukraine–People's Self-Defense Bloc.

In January 2010 Hrytsenko became party leader of Civil Position. Hrytsenko was a candidate for President of Ukraine in the 2010 Ukrainian presidential elections, and in the election he received 1.2% of the votes (finishing ninth In the second round he called on voting against both candidates (Yulia Tymoshenko and Viktor Yanukovych). Civil Position gained one seat in the Ternopil city council during the 2010 Ukrainian local elections.

During the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election Hrytsenko was elected into the Verkhovna Rada as 3rd on the electoral list of Batkivshchyna., but he later resigned from Rada because of disagreements with the faction.

Since 2014 unsuccessful attempts to get elected Hrytsenko was one of the candidates for presidency in the 2014 Ukrainian presidential election. According to the opinion poll ordered by 1+1 TV channel and conducted by GfK Ukraine on 6–8 May, 5.6 per cent of the surveyed planned to vote for him. In the election he received 5.48% of the vote, ranking him in 4th place.

In the 2014 parliamentary election Civil Position took part on a joint list with members of the Democratic Alliance. For elections in single member constituencies, both parties participated separately. In the election the alliance failed to clear the 5% election threshold (it got 3.1% of the votes) and also both parties did not win a constituency seat and thus no parliamentary seats.

On 4 April 2018, National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) informed that the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor Office initiated a criminal proceeding based on results of state financial audit of "Viysktorhservis" consortium. Representatives of public organizations called on the Prosecutor General to check these facts.

Hrytsenko's Civil Position nominated Hrytsenko as a candidate in the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election on 11 January 2019. Hrytsenko's candidacy was supported by the European Party of Ukraine, Native Land, Alternative, and Wave. On 1 March (2019) fellow candidates Andriy Sadovyi and Dmytro Gnap withdrew from the election and urged (their) voters to support Hrytsenko. On 7 March Dmytro Dobrodomov stepped out of the election also in favor of Hrytsenko. During the 2019 presidential election campaign Hrytsenko proposed to create a Ukrainian military reserve force and to legalize firearms (including registration of all firearms). In the election Hrytsenko did not proceed to the second round of the election; in the first round he placed fifth with 6.91% of the votes.

In the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election Civil Position gained 1.04% of the national vote and no parliamentary seats.

Awards Honorary weapon – Fort-12 pistol (25 October 2007)

Earnings

Personal life From 1978 to 2002, he was married to Lyudmila. The couple had two children. Oleksii (born 1979) graduated from the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, he was a forward and then vice president of the Berkut Hockey Club, The eldest daughter Svetlana (born 1982) graduated from school with a gold medal, received a bachelor's degree in international economics from the Kyiv National Economic University and a master's degree in international business from University of Stirling in Scotland. Svetlana worked as an expert at the Ukrainian Centre for Economic and Political Studies (UCEPS) and in the election headquarters of Viktor Yushchenko, then became the press secretary of the Berkut Hockey Club and the project manager for the Kyiv office of The PBN Company. Hrytsenko and Mostova had to celebrate the wedding seven times, most recently in June 2003, together with the then-future Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and his wife Kateryna Chumachenko. On 6 March 2016, the couple married in the church. Hrytsenko and Mostova have a daughter Anna (born 2004), also Mostova have a son Hlib (born 1999) - the youngest son of Razumkov.