Mykola Azarov

Mykola Yanovych Azarov (Мико́ла Я́нович Аза́ров; Никола́й Я́нович Аза́ров; né Pakhlo, Cyrillic: Пахло; born 17 December 1947) is a Ukrainian politician who was the Prime Minister of Ukraine from 11 March 2010 to 27 January 2014.

Azarov was born in Kaluga on 17 December 1947 in the Russian SFSR, Soviet Union, to a half-Russian and half-Estonian father, Jaan Pahlo, and a Russian mother, Yekaterina Pavlovna Kvasnikova, as Nikolay Pakhlo.

When he married his wife, Lyudmila Azarova, he took her name.

Azarov attended the Moscow State University where he earned his doctorate in geology and mineralogy in 1973.

He worked at the Tulaugol coal enterprise until 1976.

Azarov moved to Donetsk permanently in 1984 to become deputy director of the Ukrainian State Geological Institute, that he went on to head.

In 1984–1995 he was a deputy director and director of Ukraine's State Research and Design Institute of Mining Geology and Geomechanics.

In 1991 he was hired as a professor at Donetsk National Technical University.

In 1994 Azarov was elected member of the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian parliament) for the first time, representing the Petroskiy electoral district, located in the city of Donetsk.

In 1995–1997 he served as head of the parliament's Committee on Budgets while also sitting on the Verkhovna Rada's presidium.

In parliament, he belonged to an inter-regional group of MPs supporting then-President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma.

In 1995, while carrying on as an MP, Azarov was appointed an adviser to the currency council of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

In 1996 he became Chairman of the State Tax Administration of Ukraine.

Azarov was a long-term (1996–2002) head of the State Tax Administration.

During this period tax inspections were used to limit the freedom of the press in Ukraine.

On tapes made during the Cassette Scandal Azarov is heard speaking on recordings, secretly recorded in Kuchma's office by Kuchma's bodyguard Mykola Melnychenko, about using his position as the head of the tax authority to pressure officials to ensure Kuchma's reelection in 1999.

Critics also stated that the recordings implicated Azarov in other corrupt schemes, including allegedly covering up graft at the state natural gas company Naftogaz, aiding the demise of the Slaviansk Bank (which was connected to Yulia Tymoshenko's natural gas company United Energy Systems of Ukraine) and illegal funding of Kuchma's 1999 election campaign.

Azarov has vehemently refuted all these allegations.

In 2001 he became the head of the Party of Regions but resigned from the post in less than a year.

He was the First Vice Prime Minister and Finance Minister from 2002 to 2005 and again from 2006 to 2007.

Azarov also served ex officio as an acting prime minister in the First Yanukovych Government when Viktor Yanukovych ran for president at first and then upon the resignation of his government.

In 2002, he accused Slavyansk Bank president Borys Feldman of being behind the Cassette Scandal recordings.

In 2002, the European Choice parliamentary group nominated him for the Prime Minister's post.

Still, he declined, standing aside for Viktor Yanukovych, who assumed both the leadership of the Party of Regions and the Prime Minister's job.

Azarov was appointed First Vice Prime Minister and Finance Minister in late November 2002, when the first Yanukovych Government took office.

During the first Yanukovych Government governing the set of economic reforms was implemented including fiscal, tax, pensionary, regulatory reforms.

In 2003 Azarov was elected chairman of the Party of Regions political council.

During Azarov's first term as Finance Minister, the annual GDP growth was 9.6% in 2003 and 12.1% in 2004 (cf. 2.7% in 2005) in Ukraine, with capital investments of 31.3% and 28.0% (cf. 1.9% in 2005 ).

Azarov first served as acting prime minister from 7 December 2004 to 28 December 2004, after Yanukovych was put on vacation leave by President Kuchma in the midst of the Orange Revolution.

After the runoff, Yanukovych attempted to resume his duties as prime minister, but effectively unable to do so, announced his resignation on 31 December 2004, and Azarov was named acting prime minister again.

The Yanukovych Cabinet was officially dismissed on 5 January 2005.

Azarov continued as acting prime minister until shortly after the inauguration of Viktor Yushchenko, when Yulia Tymoshenko was appointed Prime Minister on 24 January 2005.

Following the victory of Viktor Yanukovych in the 2010 presidential election, Azarov succeeded Yanukovych as leader of the Party of Regions and was appointed as prime minister in March 2010.

In January 2014, after weeks of Euromaidan protests and the 2014 Hrushevskoho Street riots, Azarov offered his letter of resignation.

After the Revolution of Dignity, Azarov fled to Russia and according to Azarov himself, was allegedly offered "political refugee status on the personal instructions of Vladimir Putin".

Since then he has been reportedly living in the vicinity of the Russian village of Petrovo-Dalneye, near Moscow.

Since July 2014, Azarov has been on the international wanted list for alleged abuse of power.

On 19 January 2015 Kyiv District Court of Pechersk Raion issued an arrest warrant as a preventive measure to allow for the extradition of Azarov from the Russian Federation.

Azarov is currently the subject of international sanctions from the U.S., European Union, Norway, Canada, and Switzerland due to his role in the Euromaidan.

In 2015, he set up the Ukraine Salvation Committee, a government in exile that was widely seen as a pro-Russian puppet.