Ihor Smeshko

Colonel General Ihor Petrovych Smeshko (, born 17 August 1955) served as the head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) from 2003 to 2005, where he supported the opposition during the Orange Revolution. In 2010, he entered politics with the Strength and Honor party, which he formed with several former security and intelligence officials. He was chairman of the Intelligence Committee under the President of Ukraine (from October 7, 2014, to March 12, 2015).

Smeshko was registered as a candidate in the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election. In the election he took 6th place with 6.04% of the vote.

Biography Born in 1955 in Khrystynivka, Cherkasy Region, Smeshko has made a career as a professional soldier-scholar. He holds a doctorate in Military Cybernetics and served as professor of information systems and systems analysis, publishing over 100 papers. In 1992, he became secretary of the Science Advisory Council of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. That same year he was reassigned as Defense Attache to the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington D.C. where he spent 4 years. While there he negotiated a memorandum of military cooperation with the United States during that time. In 1995, Smeshko was awarded a general's star and recalled to Ukraine to lead the president's committee on intelligence, which he did for 3 years. In 1997, Smeshko was appointed Chief Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine where he uncovered "massive fraud" in weapons end-user certificate production indicative of arms trafficking at the SBU, then headed by Leonid Derkach. Smeshko implemented stricter controls, particularly for the Kolchuga air defense system.

In 2000, facing political attacks organized by the SBU, Smeshko resigned from his post as head of the Military Intelligence Directorate and assumed the post of Defense Attache to Switzerland, But in the election the party won 3.82%, not enough to clear the 5% election threshold and thus no parliamentary seats. The party also failed to win a constituency seat.

Smeshko was a candidate for Mayor of Kyiv for the party Strength and Honor in the 2020 Kyiv local election. He finished 7th place with 22.418 votes.

Besides his native Ukrainian, Smeshko speaks fluent English, German and French. Smeshko denies the allegations, citing the existence of several other theories regarding the poisoning, and claims that the allegations were made by Kuchma supporters from within the security services, including former SBU chief Derkach. State Prize of Ukraine in the field of science and technology (2004) Honorary Master of the Joint Intelligence Institute at the National Defense Academy of Ukraine