Mykola Rudkovsky

Rudkovsky was born on 18 December 1967 in the village of Staryi Bykiv, Ukraine SSR, and was educated at the Chernihiv Collegium National University from January 1985 to January 1986. From January 1986 to January 1988, he served with the Soviet Army, returning as a student at the Chernihiv Collegium National University from May 1988 to February 1990. He then moved to the Moscow State Business School as a trainee from February to September 1990, and studied at the Vienna University of Economics from September 1991 to January 1994.[1][2]

From September 1994 to September 1996, Rudkovsky worked for the President's Administration while actually residing in Kyiv on Kosiora Street. In February 1996, he returned to the new Bykov, where he registered a second time at the previous address and obtained a new passport from the Bobrovytsia Raion Police Department as a citizen of Ukraine. Police officials claim that the presidential consultant was threatened and extorted during the procedure.[2]

Prior to Rudkovsky's ministerial role, he held several positions which include as an assistant consultant to People's Deputy of Ukraine Valentyna Semenyuk-Samsonenko from April 2000 to April 2002; and as the mayor of Chernihiv from April to May 2006. He became the Minister of Transport and Communications from 4 August 2006 to 18 December 2007, and was the First Secretary of the Socialist Party of Ukraine (SPU); the First Secretary of Chernihiv SPU in November 2001; the head of the SPU in October 2013.[1] In the Verkhovna Rada, he was seen at least twice in impersonal voting.[3]

On 12 October 2013, Rudkovsky was elected chairman of the SPU. He fled Ukraine in 2014,[4] because police wanted to ask questions about the kidnapping of the ex-head of Naftogazvydobuvanny, Oleh Valeriyovych Seminskyi. (Rudkovsky was the owner of the Naftogazvydobuvanny company together with Nestor Shufrych. Seminsky was kidnapped in 2012 and held hostage until 2015,[5] and Rudkovsky's name was mentioned among the customers.[6])

Rudovsky was detained in Dubai at the beginning of April 2018 for entering the country with a fake Iraqi passport. Due to differences with the autonomous government, he was unable to carry out his plan to exploit oil in Iraqi Kurdistan. He was released on 7 May 2018.[7] He was again taken into custody on 28 September 2018, in Moscow on suspicion of being in a group of people stealing items from the Russian Embassy in Kyiv in 2014.[8]

When Rudkovskyi ran over a 22-year-old cyclist on 14 August 1996, the prosecutor's office in Kyiv filed a criminal complaint against him in May 1998. The cyclist died at the site. A few days later, the case was abruptly closed. The Kyiv prosecutor's office noted that only a superficial inspection was conducted, the inquiry inspector actually came to a conclusion based on his testimony, and the inspector failed to find out important facts at various stages of the development of the road situation.[2]

Rudkovsky was charged in 2007 with misusing his position of authority and embezzling a sizable sum of money. He was specifically accused of using public money to travel abroad.[9] Judge Oleg Bilotserkivets of the Pechersk Court in Kyiv terminated the case on 26 May 2010, at which time the state declared that it was dropping all charges and the prosecutor was changed.[10][11]

Rudkovsky was arrested in September 2018 after landing in Moscow and charged with the assault on the Russian embassy on 14 June 2014. According to the Russia's prosecutor's office, the former minister carried out this action alongside Right Sector activists. The case was transferred to the Moscow court on 1 November 2019.[12] The Moscow court considered mitigating factors (compensation for material damage in the amount of 2 million rubles and remorse), imposing a sentence of two years in prison and a fine of 5.750 million rubles for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia and 8.289 million rubles in favor of the Sogaz insurance company. The prosecution had requested a sentence of six years in prison. The court also counted the time spent in the pretrial detention facility starting on 28 September 2018, at a daily rate for one and a half days.[13]

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) revealed the details of a well-known kidnapping that took place in 2012 on 25 February 2021. Oleh Valeriyovych Seminskyi, the head of the gas extraction firm at the time and, as of 2019, a deputy of the pro-government Servant of the People party, was abducted at that time.[14] On 3 March, Rudkovsky left for Ukraine, and the following day, he was charged with being the person who had ordered the kidnapping.[15] The inquiry found that Seminsky was held captive for over three years, subjected to relentless torture, and forced to pay the crime's mastermind a bogus debt of $200 million. In March, Mykola Katerynchuk was hired as Rudkovsky's attorney.[16]