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Oleksandr Rzhavskyy

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Oleksandr Rzhavskyy
People's Deputy of Ukraine
In office
12 May 1998 – 14 May 2002
Preceded byConstituency established
Succeeded byAndriy Klyuyev
ConstituencyDonetsk Oblast, No. 46[1]
Personal details
Born(1959-01-30)30 January 1959
Kramatorsk, Donetsk Oblast, Ukrainian SSR, USSR
Died27 March 2022(2022-03-27) (aged 63)
Bucha, Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine

Oleksandr Mykolayovych Rzhavsky (Ukrainian: Олександр Миколайович Ржавський; 30 January 1959 – 27 March 2022[2]) was a pro-Russian[3] Ukrainian politician who served as a member of the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) from 1998 until 2002.

Rzhavsky was also candidate in the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election,[4] nominated by the "United Family" Party, of which he was the head. Presidential candidate in 1999, when he won 0.37% of the votes, and finished in 9th place.[citation needed]

He was vice-chair of the board of Montazhspetsbank in 1996–97, and president of Koral Bank in 1997–98. In his program, he promised to establish order in Ukraine, using the methods of Russian President Vladimir Putin.[5] On 13 February 2022 he published on his Facebook profile a comment, where he rhetorically asked "why Russians didn't act the same way as fascist occupiers in Crimea", arguing with the notion of Russia as an occupier.[5]

On 27 March 2022 he was killed by soldiers of the 64th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine at his estate in Bucha, Kyiv Oblast, as part of the Bucha massacre.[2][5] According to his daughter, he had been abducted twice from his estate by Russian soldiers who had demanded a ransom and, during a drunken binge, had shot him dead. The killing was witnessed by his family who posted an official statement on Rzhavsky's Facebook profile.[6]

Russian media denied killing Rzhavsky on 27 March and on 11 April published an undated recording of Rzhavsky claiming it was recorded on 30 March.[7] On 12 April Investigative Committee of Russia declared it will include the recording in its "investigation on the Bucha fakes"[8] after which Rzhavsky's name disappeared from Russian state media coverage, while Russian bloggers continued claiming he was indeed killed, but by "Ukrainian nationalists".

References

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  1. ^ "Ржавський Олександр Миколайович" [Rzhavsky, Oleksandr Mykolayovych]. Chesno (in Ukrainian). Retrieved 2022-12-20.
  2. ^ a b В Бучі п’яні окупанти застрелили екс-нардепа та кандидата в президенти Олександра Ржавського (in Ukrainian)
  3. ^ "У Бучі окупанти застрелили проросійського екснардепа Олександра Ржавського - новини України".
  4. ^ Russia & Eurasia facts & figures annual. Academic International Press. 2000. p. 406. ISBN 9780875692227.
  5. ^ a b c Parafianowicz, Zbigniew (2022). Śniadanie śmierdzi trupem [The breakfast in the smell of a corpse] (in Polish). WAM. ISBN 9788327730992.
  6. ^ "В Бучі п'яні окупанти застрелили екс-нардепа та кандидата в президенти Олександра Ржавського" [In Bucha, drunken occupiers shot dead former People's Deputy and presidential candidate Oleksandr Rzhavsky]. УКРАИНА КРИМИНАЛЬНАЯ (in Russian). 8 April 2022. Archived from the original on 3 June 2022. Retrieved 8 May 2022.
  7. ^ "Насилие стало основой политики украинских националистов, заявил Ржавский". РИА Новости (in Russian). 2022-04-11. Retrieved 2023-07-31.
  8. ^ "СК изучит запись разговора экс-депутата Рады с российскими военными". РИА Новости (in Russian). 2022-04-12. Retrieved 2023-07-31.