Sergei Yushenkov

June 27 would have marked the 60th anniversary of the birth of the Russian politician

Sergei Yushenkov was born on June 27, 1950 in the village of Medvedkovo, Kalinin Region, and was killed on April 17, 2003 near his own house in Moscow.

Sergei Nikolaevich studied at the Toropetsk Agricultural College of the Kalinin Region, in 1974 he graduated from the Novosibirsk Higher Military-Political School. In 1980 he entered the Military-Political Academy (VPA) named after. Lenin in Moscow, in 1984 - in the postgraduate course of the VPA named after Lenin. In 1987-90 he was a teacher of Marxist-Leninist philosophy at the WPA.

Sergei Yushenkov became a member of the CPSU in 1974 (during the graduation year of the school) and remained in it until July 1990. According to him, in 1972, together with several fellow students, he organized a group that planned the creation of a true Marxist-Leninist party. Then, however, the group disbanded itself.

He took part in the events of the Moscow People's Front (MNF) from the summer of 1988, in which he supported the socialist majority. Participated in meetings of one of the first Moscow socio-political clubs "Perestroika". During this period, he became close with Sergei Stankevich, with whom he was one of the co-authors of the book "Informals. Social Initiatives" (1990).

In December 1989, he was nominated as a candidate for deputies and in March 1990, with the support of the Democratic Russia (DR) pre-election bloc and the Shield Union for the Protection of Servicemen, Persons Liable for Military Service and Members of Their Families, he was elected People's Deputy of the RSFSR for the Kiev Territorial District N 20 (Moscow ).

Since July 1990, he was a member of the Committee of the Supreme Council (SC) of the RSFSR on the media, relations with public associations and mass movements of citizens and the study of public opinion, chairman of the subcommittee on the study of public opinion (the parent organization for sociological research for parliament). He was a member of the Commission under the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR to verify the causes of death and injury of servicemen.

On August 19-21, 1991, during the coup attempt, he participated in organizing the defense of the White House.

In March-April 1992, Yushenkov was one of the founders of the coalition of reforms, a bloc of pro-government parliamentary factions. He was the president of the Fund for Support of Democratic Changes in Russia, the financial base of the Coalition of Reforms, sponsored by private entrepreneurial capital.

In May 1992, Sergei Yushenkov joined the inter-factional parliamentary group Reform, which lasted until the end of 1992.

He participated in the Forum of Reformists and the creation of the block of political organizations "Democratic Choice" in July 1992. In September 1992, he became one of the initiators of the campaign in parliament for the resignation of Ruslan Khasbulatov from the post of Chairman of the Supreme Court.

In early 1993, he was appointed first deputy chairman of the Federal Information Center, which, among other things, organizes the work of federal radio and television (the chairman of the center is Mikhail Poltoranin).

In June 1993, he signed (on behalf of the Radical Democrats faction) a statement on the creation of the electoral Bloc of reformist forces "Russia's Choice". In October 1993, he entered the list of candidates for deputies of the State Duma from the "Choice of Russia" bloc according to the "Gaidar quota" (five names at the top of the list, the introduction of which was left by the founding congress of the bloc to the discretion of Gaidar). On December 12, 1993, he was elected to the State Duma of the first convocation on the bloc's list.

In the Duma of the first convocation, Yushenkov headed the State Duma Committee on Defense.

He took up similar work two years later, when he was re-elected as a deputy for a four-year term on the list of the Democratic Choice of Russia and became a member of the defense committee and headed the subcommittee on financing national defense.

In 1999, Yushenkov again became a deputy of the State Duma from the electoral bloc "Union of Right Forces" and became a member of the security committee.

In 2000, Yushenkov co-founded the Liberal Russia movement, which was allegedly funded by Boris Berezovsky.

In January 2002, State Duma deputies Viktor Pokhmelkin, Sergei Yushenkov, Vladimir Golovlev and Yuli Rybakov, representing the leadership of the Liberal Russia movement, announced their withdrawal from the Union of Right Forces parliamentary faction.

As Yushenkov said at the time, this decision was due to "the impossibility to continue to be part of the Union of Right Forces faction, which on the whole supports the policy pursued by the country's leadership towards the actual building of a police-bureaucratic regime in Russia."

In accordance with the changed Russian legislation, "Liberal Russia" was transformed into a party.

In October 2002, the political council of Liberal Russia, which Boris Berezovsky created and is believed to have invested a million dollars in, expelled its co-chairman from the party for left-wing deviationism and "ideological incompatibility."

Recently, Yushenkov has been actively involved in party building and preparing the party for the upcoming elections.

On April 17, 2003, Yushenkov, along with other representatives of the party leadership, received a certificate of registration of the Liberal Russia party from the Russian Ministry of Justice.

Sergei Yushenkov was killed on April 17, 2003 near his own house in Moscow. He was shot three times with a silenced Makarov pistol. The weapon was found abandoned. As the court established, the co-chairman of the wing of the Liberal Russia party, Mikhail Kodanev, was the organizer of the murder.

Comments of politicians on the day of Yushenkov's assassination

Vladimir Putin, President of Russia:

I am deeply shocked by the tragic news of the death of Sergei Nikolaevich Yushenkov. A bright politician of our time has passed away. A man who considered it his duty to defend democratic freedoms and ideals was killed.

Viktor Pokhmelkin, co-chair of Liberal Russia:

Yushenkov's biggest conflict lately was with Berezovsky. However, I cannot connect this with the murder... Yushenkov was not involved in commerce or business, so all versions, except for the political one, are excluded. He has always been far from the financial sector.

Sergey Kovalyov, State Duma deputy, human rights activist:

Whom "Liberal Russia" could interfere with, I'll never know. I think that this party has not really taken place yet, its chances in the elections are extremely meager. As a political force that is not afraid of sharp criticism of the authorities, many people found it unpleasant... I can’t say that Sergei Yushenkov was a prominent figure in the commission (on the explosions of residential buildings. - Ed.), because he was more involved in party affairs than the affairs of the commission. In general, if we talk about political reasons, they may not be so straightforward and not tied only to the party or the commission. I'm afraid it won't be long before we know the cause of the murder.

Valeria Novodvorskaya, member of Liberal Russia:

The order to kill Yushenkov came from the Kremlin. Even the FSB cannot kill two chairmen (Yushenkov and Golovlev - Ed.) without an order. Seryozha could not win the elections, he has no money either. But he irritated the authorities. This massacre is absolutely brutal, unmotivated, since he was a real competitor to the almighty Kremlin. This murder shows that we are in the hands of the beasts.

according to wikipedia