Serhiy Tihipko

Early life Tihipko was born on 13 February 1960 in the village of Drăgănești, Sîngerei, in the Lazovskiy district of the Moldavian SSR in a Ukrainian family who moved there from Podolia in 1902. His father fought in World War II, where he was badly wounded, and died when Tihipko was 10. His mother was a village nurse.

Education, military service, and the Komsomol Tihipko was educated at the local school in Lazovskiy district, and then went to university in Dnipropetrovsk, where he graduated in engineering-metallurgy from the Dnipropetrovsk Metallurgical Institute in 1982. In June 2000 Tihipko left the Yushchenko Government to take part in a parliamentary by-election on 25 June and eventually won a seat at the majoritarian constituency #36 in the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. Tihipko was Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine in the years 2002–2004.

Tihipko chaired the election campaign in 2004 for presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych. After the election Tihipko temporarily left Ukrainian politics, resigning as Labour Ukraine leader on 23 April 2005, to build up a bank which he sold to Swedbank group for nearly $1 billion. Tihipko was an ally of former president Leonid Kuchma. Analysts have claimed Kuchma should have given his support to Tihipko during the 2004 Ukrainian presidential elections instead of supporting Viktor Yanukovych, however Yanukovych had more popular support.

Korrespondent estimated his fortune at $369 million in 2009.

Ukrainian presidential election, 2010

Tihipko was elected leader of the party Strong Ukraine in November 2009. In January 2010, Tihipko declared "his team" will participate in the 2014 Kyiv local election.

Tihipko was a candidate for President of Ukraine in the 2010 presidential election.

Of the 18 presidential candidates, Tihipko has declared the highest income to the Ukrainian election Committee. He had an income of about $2.5 million in 2008 and told Kyiv Post he had spent roughly the same amount on his presidential campaign till December 2009. “I will spend as much as I need. This is my own money.” ) on his election campaign.

Tihipko was defeated in the first round of the presidential election, receiving 13.05% of the vote; two candidates (Yulia Tymoshenko and Viktor Yanukovych) received more votes.

On 22 January 2010, Tihipko warned outgoing president Viktor Yushchenko could introduce a state of emergency during the transfer of power after the presidential election 2010.

Tihipko did not endorse a candidate for the run-off of the election. He did state he would agree to become Prime Minister of Ukraine under the new president whose program is close to him. While (then) candidate Victor Yanukovych stated that Tihipko and (another 2010 presidential candidate) Arseniy Yatseniuk would "have a good chance to be in the team that will unite Ukraine and will build our country together with me".

According to a poll by Research & Branding Group, as of 27 November Tihipko was running fifth in polls at 4.4%, behind Viktor Yanukovych (32.4%), Yulia Tymoshenko (16.3%), Arseniy Yatseniuk (6.1%) and Volodymyr Lytvyn (4.5%), and ahead of Petro Symonenko (3.8%) and incumbent President Viktor Yushchenko (3.5%).

A poll conducted by FOM-Ukraine in late November placed him in third place at 7.4%, with 23% of the respondents stating that they consider Tihipko "a promising young politician whom they would like to see at the presidential elections." Director of the Penta Center for Applied Political Studies Volodymyr Fesenko thought that this third-place by Tihipko could be explained by the fact that some voters started to consider Tihipko not only an alternative to the leader of the Party of Regions Viktor Yanukovych, but as an alternative to fellow candidate Arseniy Yatseniuk. According to a Russian poll taken in the last week of the campaign, Serhiy Tihipko was to be the unexpected outsider, snapping the second place from Tymoshenko.

According to the results of an exit poll initiated by the ICTV TV channel, Tihipko would have won the 2010 presidential election if he had participated in the second round of the election.

Political career after the 2010 presidential election

On 11 February 2010, Tihipko stated that he would agree to become Prime Minister of Ukraine if President Victor Yanukovych offered him the post. On 15 February Yanukovych stated "I do not rule out the candidature of Tihipko. Tihipko is on the list which, in my opinion, will be discussed next week in parliament". On 17 February 2010 Tihipko stated that he had met Yanukovych twice after the election to discuss issues of the country's development and that he had reached no agreement with the parliamentary faction of the Our Ukraine-People's Self-Defense Bloc regarding their support of his candidacy for the post of Prime Minister. On 21 February 2010 President Yanukovych offered three candidates for the Prime Minister post: Tihipko, Our Ukraine faction member Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Party of Regions lawmaker Mykola Azarov. On 11 March 2010 Tihipko was elected as one of six deputy Prime Ministers (in charge of economic issues ) in the Azarov Government. This cabinet was reshuffled in December 2010; according to Deputy Head of the Situations Modelling Agency Oleksiy Holobutsky this resulted in Tihipko being responsible for all unpopular reforms. He was appointed Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine – Minister of social policy of Ukraine.

In August 2011, Tihipko and Prime Minister (and a Party of Regions leader), Mykola Azarov, announced that Strong Ukraine and Party of Regions were going to team up and eventually Strong Ukraine would be merged into POR. Tihipko stated (in October 2011) he would become a Party of Regions member after the negotiations between the parties were concluded. The two parties merged on 17 March 2012. The same day, Tihipko was unanimously elected Party of Regions deputy chairman and member of the Party of Regions political council. In the 2012 parliamentary election he was (re)-elected into parliament on the party list of Party of Regions. Tihipko did not return to a ministerial post after and hinted (in December 2012) that he would mainly deal with the ideology of Party of Regions since. He was one of the 36 members of the Party of regions faction (who consisted of 96 deputies) who voted in favour of the impeachment of President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014.

Ukrainian presidential election, 2014

Tihipko is a self-nominated candidate for President of Ukraine in the 2014 presidential election. Of the 23 presidential candidates, Tihipko has declared the highest income to the Ukrainian election Committee. He had an income of about ₴263 million in 2013. According to the first poll published after Vitali Klitschko withdrew from the presidential race, as of 31 March Tihipko was running second at 17.9%, behind Petro Poroshenko (38.3%).

On 29 March a Party of Regions convention supported Mykhailo Dobkin's nomination as a presidential candidate. On 7 April 2014 the political council of the party expelled Tihipko from the party.

On 23 April 2014 Tihipko announced that the Strong Ukraine party would be re-established and that its 2012 merger with Party of Regions had been "a mistake".

In the 2014 Ukrainian presidential election, he received 5.23% of the vote, ranking 5th among all candidates. He did do better than Dobkin, who gained 3.03%. But he was not elected into parliament because the party won one constituency parliamentary seat (only). In May 2026, he became a freelance adviser to Kyrylo Budanov, who has been serving as Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine.

Banking 2015 onwards Early May 2015, Tihipko was appointed head of the supervisory council of TAScombank, part of TAS-Group, in which he holds the largest stake of nearly 49%.

Tihipko bought a controlling stake (99.9230%) in Russian state-owned Sberbank's Ukrainian subsidiary in December 2017.

Political positions

quote=“European integration remains the main European course for us” — Tihipko on 21 December 2012 on Inter In September 2009 he wrote an article that was published in the Ukrainian edition of Komsomolskaya Pravda in which he criticized Ukraine's foreign policy over the past five years, saying its goal had been to "participate in a cordon sanitaire" around Russia, which has done "enormous economic damage" to Ukraine, weakened Ukraine's position in the post-Soviet realm, and turned Moscow into a "powerful opponent of Ukrainian interests." According to Tihipko (in January 2010) Ukraine is not yet ready to seek membership in the European Union or NATO and must first focus on forming a unified government that can stimulate the country's economy. In the long term he seeks European integration for Ukraine.

Tihipko supports the legalization of prostitution in Ukraine. In November 2009, he stated, "...we should not be hypocrites. If certain things exist, we should speak about them openly and resolve [them] if necessary."

Tihipko supports the privatization of Ukraine's gas-pipeline system and its joint management by Russia and Europe, but warned that he would "not support the seizure of the pipeline" by Russia, which he believed the conditions (late 2009) were being set for. He was critical about the April 2010 natural gas agreement stating that while the deal might make economic sense "The procedure of debating the agreement and completing it behind closed doors is not what the Ukrainian people want."

Presidential candidate Tihipko intends to make Russian a second state language if he wins the 2014 Ukrainian presidential election. In the campaign he spoke out against the separatism of the pro-Russian armed groups in Eastern Ukraine and for decentralisation. In the campaign he advocated Ukraine's non-aligned status "if we now start talking more about NATO – it completely will split the country.

Family and private life Tihipko was married to Natalia Tihipko from 1981 to 2004. They had one daughter together, Anna, born in 1984; she now works in a company owned by her father. She is also managing director at a venture company which invests in online projects worldwide, and is considered to be one of the most successful businesswomen in Ukraine.