Tetiana Chornovol

Tetiana Mykolaivna Chornovol (; born 4 June 1979) is a Ukrainian journalist and civic activist, and also of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on national security and defense.

Although not being high enough initially on the election list of European Solidarity in the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election, following the assassination of European Solidarity MP Andriy Parubiy, Chornovol entered parliament being the next candidate in line in September 2025.

Investigative career In 2004, she began specializing in investigative journalism, contributing to several Ukrainian online newspapers, including Ukrainska Pravda, and claimed that the decisions of British judges are not legitimate in Ukraine.

Other articles by Chornovol addressed the alleged organized crime background of then-President Viktor Yanukovych and reported on his lavish countryside property.

Unsuccessful election campaign Chornovol unsuccessfully ran in the 2012 parliamentary election in the suburban Lviv Oblast constituency Horodok, representing the oppositional Batkivshchyna party.

25 December attack In the early morning of 25 December 2013 at 01:30 AM Chornovol was severely beaten by a group of men who dragged her from her car near Boryspil International Airport in Boryspil outside Kyiv.

Chornovol was hospitalized with initial diagnosis of broken nose, concussion, and multiple bruises.

In her 26 December bed-ridden interview, Chornovol stated that her investigations were the only possible reason for the attack on her, and dismissed suggestions that the attack was a result of either road rage or a false flag political provocation against authorities. According to the (then) governor of Kharkiv Oblast, Mykhailo Dobkin, the attack (that he compared to the Reichstag fire) had been organised by insiders. #tag:ref|Dobkin's full response was: "Why should modern day Nazis set fire to the Reichstag, when they can sort things out by thrashing anything up to ten local activists who have figured in the media? Typically, the only Maidan activists that get beaten up are those whose work for the community is funded from abroad". By 30 December, Chornovol was transferred out of intensive care but remained in hospital due to severe hypersomnia.

On 21 February 2014, when Euromaidan protesters raided the Mezhyhirya presidential residence of Viktor Yanukovych, Euromaidian activists and investigators from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project discovered "black lists" of journalists and activists involved in the oppositions, with an individual dossier on Chornovol, with photographs and the license plate of her car.

Political career

On 5 March 2014, Chornovol was appointed head of Ukrainian government's National Anti-Corruption Committee by the Yatsenyuk Government. of People's Deputy Oleksandr Onyshchenko and the head of the State Fiscal Service Roman Nasirov on behalf of NABU for non-payment of the billions of taxes on gas and oil extraction of firms under the control of Onyshchenko, as well as the illegal restructuring of these debts to Nasirov.

Chornovol started her own investigation of crimes committed by Onyschenko from the visit to his office in Myronivka.

During the Verkhovna Rada voting for the cancelling of deputies immunity of Onyshchenko, Chornovol symbolically came in a sweater with horses - Onyshchenko is a famous horse fan.

On 22 December 2016, Tetiana Chornovol's bill 5129 was adopted, which destroyed the scheme for obtaining extra profits by alternative energy companies created by the Klyuyev brothers during the Yanukovych government.

In 2017, Tetiana Chornovol strongly criticized the blockade of trade with companies located in some districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. She tried to influence the public opinion, which, in her belief, falsely supported the so-called blockade on blood'. The MP spoke at rallies in Avdiivka, Kramatorsk, and Mariupol. According to Chornovol, this blockade was initiated by the Russian FSB and it leveled Ukraine's tactical victory in the hybrid war, because, after all, factories and mines located in the occupied territory paid taxes to the budget of Ukraine, as well as supplied raw materials and scarce anthracite for enterprises in Ukraine, but then went under the control of an aggressor state.

In the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election Chornovol was placed 27 on the party list of European Solidarity. But in the election they won 23 seats on this list, so she did not return to parliament.

Following the assassination of European Solidarity MP Andriy Parubiy Chornovol entered parliament being the next candidate in line of European Solidarity on 18 September 2025.

Law on special confiscation

As a member of the National Security and Defense Committee, she was focused on budget financing of defense plants for the repair and modernization of armored vehicles, tanks and artillery.

Together with the chairman of the committee, Serhiy Pashynskyi, in 2015, to finance the operation of defense factories, initiated a bill on the special confiscation of Yanukovych's assets in the state budget in the form of bonds worth $1.5 billion, arrested in the banks of Ukraine after the Euromaidan. For more than two years Chornovol has been struggling to confiscate these funds, which was only made in May 2017. Chornovol was the author of a number of bills (3025, 4057, 4811, 4890, 5557, ) which established the legal mechanism for the confiscation of these funds, and also inherited the laws of many Western European countries regarding the confiscation of unjustified assets.

However, no bill was supported by the Verkhovna Rada. Chornovol stated about the influence of such people from Yanukovych's environment as Andriy Portnov, Serhiy Kurchenko, and Oleksandr Onyshchenko in order to prevent the confiscation of these assets.

In 2016, it even led to the suspension of factories for the repair and modernization of military equipment.

In appointing a new General Prosecutor, the group of Oleksandr Turchynov in the People's Front fraction, which member Chornovol is, initiated an agreement to support Yuriy Lutsenko's candidacy in exchange for a "special confiscation".

Prosecutor General's Office of Yuriy Lutsenko succeeded in May 2017 - $1.5 billion were confiscated into the State Budget of Ukraine as part of the investigation into the actions of the criminal organization of ex-president Yanukovych, with the efforts of prosecutor Kostyantyn Kulyk.

However, the fact of the confiscation of Yanukovych's assets was harshly criticized by a number of public anti-corruption organizations in Ukraine. Chornovol said that this was due to the fact that lawyers, who at the time of Yanukovych legally accompanied the government's corruption schemes (in particular, the schemes of Kurchenko), after the Maidan began to work in public anticorruption organizations. This caused Chornovol to initiate known amendments to the Law No. 6172 "On Prevention of Corruption", which obliged public officials of public anticorruption organizations to submit e-declarations.

Participation in the war against Russia

In 2014, Tetiana Chornovol took part in the defense of Mariupol as part of the "Azov" battalion.

From 24 February 2022, Chornovol is fighting on the front lines as part of the 72nd Separate Mechanized Brigade named after the Black Zaporozhians. A few days before the start of the full-scale Russian invasion, she took a course for ATGW operators. According to the agreement with the Luch Design Bureau received ATGW Stuhna and rockets — a contract of responsible storage was drawn up for Tetiana Chornovol. She took part in the battles in Chernihiv, in the east Ukraine and in the defeat of the 6th tank regiment of the Russian Federation in the Brovary district of the Kyiv region.

Tetiana Chornovol received in 2023 a military rank of Senior lieutenant.

Awards Order for Courage 3rd class (6 March 2019).

International reputation In 2014 Foreign Policy magazine included Chornovol into top 100 thinkers - people who changed the world. She was awarded in the nomination "Those who defy" for her fight against the Yanukovych regime and corruption.

In 2015, she became the protagonist of the documentary "Breaking Point: The War for Democracy in Ukraine" directed by Mark Jonathan Harris and Oles Sanin. The film is about the way Ukrainians behaved during the 2014 Ukrainian revolution and Russian military aggression.

Personal life Chornovol is a widowed mother of two. Her husband, Mykola Berezovyi,