Volodymyr Ohryzko

Volodymyr Stanislavovych Ohryzko (; born 1 April 1956) is a Ukrainian diplomat. He served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine from December 18, 2007, to March 3, 2009, when he was fired by the Ukrainian Parliament. On March 17, 2009, Ohryzko was appointed First Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council by President Viktor Yushchenko.

Early life and career Ohryzko was born on 1 April 1956 in Kyiv, which was then part of the Ukrainian SSR in the Soviet Union. He was born to ethnically Ukrainian parents. He later became a Candidate of Hhistorical Sciences from the same institute in historical sciences. He served his mandatory military service from 1981 to 1983 in the Armed Forces, before returning to the ministry. By 1991, immediately before the collapse of the Soviet Union, he had become the Leader of Political Analysis and Coordination of the Ministry of Health of the Ukrainian SSR. Afterwards, he was appointed as Ambassador to Austria and the international organizations resident there until 2004, then Ambassador at Large of the Department of Euro-Atlantic Cooperation, and finally prior to his ministry appointment as First Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs.

On March 4, 2009, the faction of BYuT at the Verkhovna Rada pledged its preparedness to support reinstatement of Volodymyr Ohryzko as Foreign Minister ("For the sake of preservation of the majority coalition and further effective work of the parliament of Ukraine") if he would apologies to Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and the Cabinet of Ministers for his actions that, in the opinion of the BYuT caused damage to the reputation of Ukraine. 49 MPs out of 156 from the faction of BYuT voted in favour of the dismissal of Ohryzko a day earlier. Despite this, Ohryzko asked President Viktor Yushchenko not to nominate him for the post of Foreign Affairs Minister in the Cabinet of Ministers on March 5, 2009, and accused BYuT of developing its own foreign policy in parallel to the government's foreign policy.

Ohryzko was placed at number 3 on the electoral list of Ukrainian Platform "Sobor" during the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election. But on 15 October 2012 the party withdrew itself from the national list of this election.

After the resignation, in 2013, Ohryzko have said that it was a big mistake for Ukraine to pause the association agreement with the European Union.

Awards The 3rd Class of the Order of Merit (2006) The Cross of Ivan Mazepa (2010)