Arseniy Yatsenyuk

Arseniy Petrovych Yatsenyuk (Арсеній Петрович Яценюк ; born 22 May 1974) is a Ukrainian politician, economist and lawyer who served as Prime Minister of Ukraine twice – from 27 February 2014 to 27 November 2014 and from 27 November 2014 to 14 April 2016.

Yatsenyuk was born on 22 May 1974, in the Ukrainian SSR's Chernivtsi.

His father, historian Petro Ivanovich Yatsenyuk, was a professor at the Faculty of History at Chernivtsi National University and has since become deputy dean of its history faculty.

Arseny's mother, Maria Grigoriievna Yatsenyuk (née Bakaj), has long been a French teacher at area high schools and in the French Department of Foreign Languages at Chernivtsi University.

Yatsenyuk speaks Ukrainian, Russian and English, and has some knowledge of Romanian as well.

According to Yatsenyuk, he comes from a family of ethnic Ukrainians, and is a member of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

He is of partly Romanian ancestry; one of his ancestors was a citizen of Romania from the region around Chernivtsi.

Some sources state he was born to a family of ethnic Romanian-Jewish-Ukrainians.

However, Yaakov Bleich, a chief rabbi of Ukraine stated, "Arseniy Yatsenyuk is not Jewish."

Furthermore, Anna Rudnitskaya said, "[Yatsenyuk's] hypothetical Jewishness was never established."

After Yatsenyuk began studying at Chernivtsi University in 1992, he set up a student law firm.

From December 1992 to September 1997, Yatsenyuk was the president of Yurek Ltd., a law firm based in Chernivtsi.

Yatsenyuk graduated from the university in 1996, and later attended the Chernivtsi Trade-Economics Institute of the Kyiv National Trade-Economics Institute in 2001.

In addition to holding a law degree and a master's degree in accounting and auditing, Yatsenyuk also earned a Ph.D. in economics from the Ukrainian Academy of Banking of the National Bank of Ukraine.

From January 1998 until September 2001, Yatsenyuk worked in the Aval bank, based in Kyiv.

From September until November 2001, Yatsenyuk served as an acting Minister of Economy of Crimea, and from November of the same year until January 2003, served as the official Minister of Economy of Crimea.

From November 2003 to February 2005, Yatsenyuk served as the first vice-president of the National Bank of Ukraine under Serhiy Tihipko.

After Tihipko left the National Bank, Arseniy Yatsenyuk was put in charge of it.

Yatsenyuk's first government post was as Minister of Economy from 2005 to 2006; subsequently he was Foreign Minister of Ukraine in 2007 and Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) from 2007 to 2008.

Yatsenyuk was one of the leaders of Ukraine's second biggest party All-Ukrainian Union "Fatherland", and former leader of its parliamentary faction.

After Vasyl Tsushko was appointed as the new Governor of Odesa Oblast, Tsushko asked Yatsenyuk to serve as his vice-governor, which he served from 9 March to September 2005.

From 27 September 2005 to 4 August 2006, he served as the Minister of Economy of Ukraine in the Yekhanurov Government.

Yatsenyuk then headed talks about Ukrainian membership in the World Trade Organization.

From 20 September 2006, he served as the first vice-president of the Head of Secretariat of the President of Ukraine, and the representative of the president in the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

Yatsenyuk was proposed for the post of Foreign Minister by the President of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko.

Yatsenyuk was confirmed by the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) on 21 March 2007 with 426 votes (from 450 maximum).

In his April 2007 remarks made to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace he commented that the Ukrainian transition to a market economy was a success.

In July 2007 while he was still Foreign Minister, Yatsenuk started the Open Ukraine Foundation, which he intended to become an international foundation for the "strengthening and development of Ukraine's reputation in the world."

In the early parliamentary elections held on 30 September 2007, Yatsenyuk was elected to the parliament from Our Ukraine–People's Self-Defense Bloc (number 3 in the bloc's member list).

On 3 December 2007, he was nominated for the position of the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada from the democratic coalition formed from the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc and Our Ukraine–People's Self-Defense Bloc.

On 4 December 2007, Yatsenyuk was elected the Chairman of the Parliament.

His candidacy was the only one in the ballot, and he obtained 227 votes in favor (from the democratic coalition; opposition abstained from the voting).

For example he signed the U.S. – Ukraine WTO Bilateral Market Access Agreement, a precursor agreement that paved the way to the full accession of Ukraine on 16 May 2008.

He became the Prime Minister of Ukraine following the 2014 revolution that removed Viktor Yanukovych from power.

In September 2014, Yatsenyuk started the new party People's Front.

On 16 February 2016, the President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, asked Yatsenyuk to resign saying he had lost the support of the coalition and the same day, the Ukrainian parliament voted the cabinet's work unsatisfactory but rejected a call for a vote of no confidence.

On 10 April 2016, Yatsenyuk announced that he would report to parliament on 12 April and resign as Prime Minister.

On 14 April 2016, Yatsenyuk was replaced by new Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman.

Chairman of the Kyiv Security Forum and the founder of Open Ukraine Foundation.

He holds the diplomatic rank of extraordinary and plenipotentiary ambassador.