Mykhailo Dobkin

Mykhailo Markovych Dobkin (born 26 January 1970) is a Ukrainian politician, former governor of Kharkiv Oblast, former mayor of Kharkiv, and a former deputy of the Ukrainian parliament.

Mykhailo Dobkin was born to a Jewish father and Ukrainian mother in Kharkiv.

He graduated from the National University of Internal Affairs with a degree in law and the Kharkiv National University of Economics, majoring in international economics.

From 1993 until 2002, Dobkin was an entrepreneur and director of several businesses.

In the 2002 Ukrainian parliamentary election, Dobkin was elected as People's Deputy of Ukraine.

Dobkin changed his political party several times while serving as a People's Deputy, going from For United Ukraine! to the Deputy group for Democratic Initiatives group less than a year after his election.

In the presidential election, Dobkin received 3.03% of the vote, ranking 6th among all candidates, and performed well in eastern Ukraine, receiving 26.25% of the vote in Kharkiv Oblast and 8.02% of the vote in neighbouring Luhansk Oblast.

From late 2005, Dobkin was a member of the political council of the Party of Regions.

Two years later, Dobkin again switched his party to the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (united), and the year afterwards joined the Party of Regions, where he remained until the Verkhovna Rada was dissolved for the 2006 Ukrainian parliamentary election.

From March 2006 to March 2010, Dobkin was Mayor of Kharkiv.

In office, Dobkin was close to Hennadiy Kernes, who exerted unofficial power upon Dobkin.

On September 27, 2007, a video recording how Dobkin’s election speech was prepared in December 2005 was posted on YouTube.

A video containing profanity by Hennadiy Kernes was also shown on television.

The authenticity of this recording is controversial.

Dobkin himself called this video "partially edited".

In March 2010, President Viktor Yanukovych appointed Dobkin as Governor of Kharkiv Oblast.

In 2014, amidst Euromaidan, Dobkin formed the Ukrainian Front, an organisation in support of Yanukovych.

Dobkin furthermore stated his intention to "clean and purify our Ukrainian land of those who come here with plans for occupation".

In February 2014, Dobkin called for Ukraine’s capital to be moved from Kyiv to Kharkiv, and for a federal structure of government to be established in Ukraine.

He also claimed that by late February 2014, "all peaceful protesters of Euromaidan had left" and that "Negotiations with [remaining protesters] will be to no avail. They need to disarm, and those who resist and kill people physically destroyed."

Following the Revolution of Dignity, Dobkin was a leading participant of local officials in Eastern Ukraine, which questioned the legality of the new government's actions and declared local officials would take responsibility for their own oblasts until order was restored.

Dobkin was later reported to have fled to Russia, along with Kharkiv mayor Hennadiy Kernes, but he returned to attend a pro-Russian rally in the city.

In late February 2014, he indicated that he intended to run for president in the upcoming Ukrainian presidential election due to his concerns regarding the behaviour of the revolutionary government towards the Russophone population.

Dobkin tendered his resignation as governor on 26 February 2014, "following [a] decision to run for the office of the President of Ukraine".

On 2 March 2014, a decree by acting President Oleksandr Turchynov formally dismissed Dobkin as governor.

On 10 March 2014, Dobkin was arrested on charges of leading a separatist movement.

However, on 20 August 2014, Dobkin's criminal case was closed "in the absence of corpus delicti".

On 25 March 2014, Dobkin filed documents to the Central Election Commission to run in the 2014 Ukrainian presidential election.

On 29 March, a Party of Regions convention supported Dobkin's nomination as a presidential candidate.

During his presidential campaign, Dobkin advocated for regionalism and the establishment of a federal Ukraine, Ukraine joining the Eurasian Customs Union, improving Russia–Ukraine relations, "defending the joint Russian-Ukrainian history, culture and traditions", maintaining Ukrainian neutrality, tax relief in the agricultural sector over the next 15 years, and the abolition of conscription.

In the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election, Dobkin was again re-elected into the Verkhovna Rada, this time as third on the party list for Opposition Bloc.

In his 2015 tax declaration, Dobkin stated that he owned 12 luxury cars.

On 13 July 2017, the Verkhovna Rada stripped Dobkin of his parliamentary immunity.

Dobkin was subsequently arrested on suspicions of abuse of office and assistance to fraud in order to obtain 78 hectares of land in Kharkiv worth more than US$8.5 million.

Two days later, a Kyiv court ruled that Dobkin was to remain in custody until 14 September 2017, and granted bail at ₴50 million.

On 19 July, members of the Opposition Bloc posted his bail.

Dobkin left Opposition Bloc in October 2017, voicing his disapproval of the party's support for judicial reform efforts.

In February 2018, he founded his own party, the Party of Christian Socialists, and in June 2019 joined Opposition Bloc (2019), along with the rest of his party.

On the first day, the video on YouTube was viewed by about 120 thousand people, and in total, as of June 2020, there were more than 6.1 million views.

The video spawned a huge number of Internet memes in the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet.