The Ukrainian dissident Levko Lukyanenko died

In Kyiv, at the age of 89, a participant in the Soviet dissident movement, a Ukrainian politician, Hero of Ukraine Levko Lukyanenko, died in a hospital. Thiswas written on Facebook by the former deputy of the Verkhovna Rada Vladimir Yavorivsky.

A few hours before, Yavorivskysaid that Lukyanenko was in intensive care.

Lukyanenko was born in 1928 in the village of Khripovka, Gorodnyansky district of the Chernihiv region of Ukraine. In 1944-1953 he served in the Soviet Army, in 1953 joined the CPSU and entered the Jurine of Moscow State University.

After graduating from the university since 1958, Lukyanenko worked as a full-time propagandist of the CPSU district committee in the city of Radeh of the Lviv region, in 1959 he became an employee of the Bar of the clay district of the region. There, he created the anti-Soviet organization "Ukrainian Workers' and Peasants Union" ("Ukrainian Robynich-Seleansk SPILLA"), who advocated the constitutional exit of Ukraine from the USSR. For this, he was expelled from the Communist Party in 1961 and sentenced to execution for "anti -Soviet agitation and propaganda", but then the punishment was replaced by 15 years in prison.

In 1976, Lukyanenko was released and became one of the founders of the Ukrainian Helsinki group. Next year he was again arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison and 5 years of exile. He was released already in the midst of perestroika, in 1988. In total, the dissident spent 26 years in captivity.

In March 1990, Lukyanenko was first elected as a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada, moving away from the railway constituency and gaining 54 percent of the vote. On April 29 of the same year, with a group of associates, he created the Ukrainian Republican Party (URP). In July 1990, the deputy became one of the authors of the declaration of state sovereignty of Ukraine.

In August 1991, Lukyanenko participated in the creation of an act of proclamation of Ukraine’s independence. On December 1, 1991, Lukyanenko participated in the first elections of the President of Independent Ukraine, taking third place and receiving 4.49 percent of voters.

In 1992-1993, the former dissident was the Ukrainian Ambassador to Canada. In this regard, he left the post of head of the URP remaining the honorary head of the party. However, in connection with the conflict with the employees of the diplomatic mission of Lukyanenko, they recalled to their homeland.

In 1998, Lukyanenko re -elected the Verkhovna Rada from the National Front party. In 2000, he again became the head of the URP and in 2002 he again elected to the parliament on the list of "Fatherland", with which his party entered the electoral bloc. In April 2005, President Viktor Yushchenko awarded Lukyanenko the title of Hero of Ukraine. In the Verkhovna Rada elections in 2006, he once again went to parliament, but the next year he resigned the authority of his own free will.