Dmytro Tabachnyk

Dmytro Volodymyrovych Tabachnyk (Дмитро Володимирович Табачник, Дмитрий Владимирович Табачник; born November 26, 1963) is a Ukrainian and Russian politician who served as the minister of education and science of Ukraine from 2010 to 2014.

Tabachnyk is among former Ukrainian officials who have had their assets frozen by EU and is wanted in Ukraine for embezzlement and abuse of office.

As a fugitive, he was believed to be in Israel and Crimea.

Amidst the Russian invasion of Ukraine Tabachnyk reappeared in public as a collaborator with Russia in Russian occupied Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

In 1986 Tabachnyk graduated from the faculty of History of Kyiv University.

Initially he worked in the State Archives as a curator of materials about the Kyiv chapter of the Komsomol.

In 1990 he became a delegate to the Kyiv City Council.

From 1991 to 1992 he was a consultant in the Secretariat of the Verkhovna Rada.

From 1993 he was in charge of Information and Press for the Cabinet of Ministers.

In 1994 he became the head of the committee to elect Leonid Kuchma as president of Ukraine where he was accused of falsification of sociological data.

In 1996 he was accused of influencing peddling the Supreme Court regarding the death penalty given to a terrorist action perpetrated by a Russian national in Simferopol.

He was forced to resign from Parliament because he illegally procured for himself the military title of colonel.

From 1997 to 1998 he was an advisor to President Kuchma.

Tabachnyk was a Member of Parliament from March 1998 through March 2003 for Labour Ukraine.

In November 2002 through February 2005, he served as vice premier in the First Yanukovych Government.

In 2002–2005 he became vice-premier minister of Ukraine under Victor Yanukovych.

During this period he was involved with the scandal of donating letters by Ukrainian historian Mykhailo Hrushevsky to the Ukrainian archive in Kyiv which had previously been stolen from the Lviv archives.

April 2006 through December 2007, Tabachnyk was a vice premier in the Second Yanukovych Government.

In March 2006, he was elected to the Supreme Council of Crimea as a deputy of the For Yanukovych! Bloc.

He became a Party of Regions MP again following the 2007 Ukrainian parliamentary election.

President Victor Yanukovych had campaigned on the promise to abolish testing in 2009.

On 11 March 2010, the day the Azarov Government and thus Tabachnyk was installed, the Lviv branch of Forward, Ukraine! started to collect signatures in support of the dismissal of Education and Science Minister Dmytro Tabachnyk.

On 17 March 2010 the Administration of the Ukrainian Catholic University appealed to the education community in Ukraine to come out publicly about the situation in the education field after the appointment of Tabachnyk as education and science minister.

According to them "Tabachnyk has been openly and publicly humiliating the Ukrainian intelligentsia, as well as Ukrainian language and Ukrainian culture, kindling hostility among the various regions of Ukraine, vindicating the human-hating Stalinist regime, which has been condemned alongside fascism for crimes against humanity by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe; he doubts the sacrifices borne by the Ukrainian people in the times of the Soviet totalitarianism".

5,000 people hold a rally in Lviv in support of Tabachnyk's dismissal on 17 March 2010.

Vyacheslav Kyrylenko, leader of For Ukraine!, stated during the rally that his party would work tirelessly to oust Tabachnyk from his post.

Kyrylenko has introduced a resolution asking the Ukrainian parliament to dismiss Tabachnyk; the vote could take place as early as 30 March 2010.

The initiative is being supported by other opposition groups, including Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko.

Faced with these protests Tabachnyk stated on 17 March 2010 he would keep his ideas about the country's history to himself.

Tabachnyk also promised not to backpedal on the "progressive educational reforms" (the Bologna education system and independent testing, which claims to "objectively determine students’ knowledge and is a critical component in ensuring they can enter university without paying bribes") that have already been introduced.

As late as 15 March 2010 his deputy, Hanna Herman, maintained they would be eliminated.

Herman also stated Yanukovych had privately met with Tabachnyk on 15 March and put him on notice.

“He had to promise the president to hide under lock and key his personal views and anti-Ukrainian statements and strictly follow the education policy approved by the parliament and the Cabinet of Ministers.

If he breaches that agreement, the president will take an adequate decision”.

By 17 March 2010 four of western Ukraine’s regional councils had passed resolutions calling for the minister’s dismissal.

A host of civic and student organizations from all over the country (including Kherson in southern Ukraine and Donetsk in eastern Ukraine), authors and former Soviet dissidents also signed petitions calling for his removal.

Tabachnyk dismissed these campaigns against him as “witch hunts” stating “If they don’t like my articles, they should turn to the editors who published them.”

At same moment rectors of some leading Ukrainian colleges and universities, intellectual and cultural leaders of Ukraine applied to the President and Prime Minister of Ukraine, the chairman of the Supreme Rada, in support of Dmitry Tabachnyk.

They named opened propaganda campaign against Tabachnyk in this position as “gamble and speculations of certain political forces”.

Authors of the said statement recalled a positive results of Tabachnyk's work in a position of the vice-premier in Yanukovych Government in the past.