Liudmyla Denisova

Biography

Raised by her mother Nina Ivanovna Ankudinova (born 1934) in Arkhangelsk, Denisova graduated from the Arkhangelsk Pedagogical School (1978), Leningrad State University (1989), and the Tavria Institute of Enterprise and Law in Simferopol (1995). In Ukraine's Autonomous Republic of Crimea, she served as Minister of Economy, Minister of Finance and head of the Treasury Department. Denisova was named Politician of the Year in 2001. In 2000, Denisova was detained for 24 hours and charged with power abuse. Denisova has stated she was persecuted for refusing to sign a budget document.

Minister On 18 December 2007, Yulia Tymoshenko, with a margin of two votes, was elected Prime Minister, and the second Tymoshenko Government was formed between the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc and Our Ukraine–People's Self-Defense Bloc in which Denisova was elected Minister of Labour and Social Policy.

In October 2009, Denisova was ranked 15th in the top 100 of "most influential women in Ukraine" compiled by experts for the Ukrainian magazine Focus (six places lower than non-minister and fellow Batkivshchyna member Natalia Korolevska).

2010 Crimean parliamentary election Denisova headed the electoral list of Batkivshchyna during the 2010 Crimean parliamentary election. Batkivshchyna did not win seats in the Supreme Council of Crimea.

2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election Denisova was placed at number 38 on the electoral list of Batkivshchyna during the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election. She was re-elected into the Verkhovna Rada

2nd minister post On 27 February 2014, Denisova became Minister of Labour and Social Policy in the Yatsenyuk Government.

In September 2014 Denisova became a founding member of the People's Front party.

In July 2017, she became Ukraine's head of the permanent delegation to represent the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation.

2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election In the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election, Denisova was re-elected into the Verkhovna Rada, placed 15th on the electoral list of People's Front.

Ombudsman for Human Rights in Ukraine

On 15 March 2018, the Verkhovna Rada appointed Denisova Ombudsman to head the Ukrainian Commission for Human Rights, where she led a team of human rights and constitutional lawyers. The latter had previously refused to meet with her after Denisova launched an official protest that she was not able to visit the Ukrainian wounded soldiers directly.

During the Russian invasion she was described as becoming "one of the leading voices of Ukraine's suffering and outrage, appearing frequently in news coverage and producing a copious stream of social media posts" The deputy chairman of the Rada regulatory committee said that Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk had had to take on most of the wartime human rights issues. In June, Ukrainska Pravda published a report alleging that journalists and the Ukrainian Prosecutor's Office had only been able to verify some of the rapes Denisova had spoken about publicly. Additionally, the deputy chairman of Ukraine's parliament regulatory committee Pavlo Frolov said that Denisova's focus on reporting some unverified crimes had harmed Ukraine's reputation and distracted media attention from proven crimes and problems.