Petro Shapoval

Petro Dmytrovych Shapoval (Ukrainian: Петро Дмитрович Шаповал; born on 1 March 1948), is a Ukrainian statesman, politician, diplomat who last served as an ambassador to Belarus from 2003 to 2005.

He also served as the ambassador to Kyrgyzstan from 2000 to 2003.

Shapoval also served as the Governor of Chernihiv Oblast from 1995 to 1998.

Biography

Petro Shapoval was born on 1 March 1948 to a peasant family in Zhovtneve, now the village of Rozhdestvenske, Korop district, Chernihiv Oblast.

In 1967, he graduated from the Nizhyn School of Agricultural Mechanization, Chernihiv Region. The same year, he became an assistant foreman of the tractor brigade of the collective farm "October Revolution" of Zhovtneve. On 30 April 1998, he left office.

On 30 November 2000, Shapoval was appointed to Ambassador of Ukraine to Kyrgyzstan. On 7 July 2003, he was dismissed from that position. On 18 August, he was appointed ambassador of Ukraine to Belarus. On 11 September, he met with the Belarusian delegates, where he met the Belarusian Foreign Minister, Sergey Martynov, focusing on further development of bilateral cooperation between the two countries.

On 18 August 2005, he was dismissed by Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko, and had been replaced by Valentyn Nalyvaichenko on 30 December. Shapoval was seen as tolerant of Lukashenko’s regime, as notes that during the recent scandal with the arrest of five Ukrainian citizens in Minsk, he did not make a single public statement of protest and did not even contact the Belarusian authorities with requests for their release.

In 2006, Shapoval was elected as a member of the Chernihiv Oblast council. He was the Chairman of the Standing Committee on Interregional and Cross-Border Cooperation.

Since 2010, he is the Chairman of the Chernihiv regional branch of the All-Ukrainian public organization "Strength and Honor".

Family

He is married and has two children.