Viktor Pshonka Prosecutor General of Ukraine Date of Birth: 06.02.1954 Country: Ukraine

Biography of Viktor Pshonka

Viktor Pavlovich Pshonka was born on February 6, 1954, in the village of Sergeevka, Slavyansk district, Donetsk region of the Ukrainian SSR. After finishing school and completing mandatory military service from 1973 to 1975, Pshonka worked at one of the enterprises in the city of Kramatorsk. He then became a student at the Kharkov Law Institute and received a diploma in Jurisprudence in 1980 (some sources state it was in 1981). Afterward, he worked as an investigator and later as an assistant prosecutor in Kramatorsk. In 1983, Pshonka was appointed as the head of the department of administrative bodies in the Kramatorsk city committee of the Communist Party. In 1986, he became the prosecutor of Kramatorsk.

In 1997, Pshonka took the position of the first deputy prosecutor of the Donetsk region under Gennadiy Vasilyev, and when Vasilyev became the Prosecutor General of Ukraine in 1998, Pshonka became the regional prosecutor, a member of the Collegium of the General Prosecutor's Office of Ukraine. During his tenure as the prosecutor of the Donetsk region, Pshonka obtained a candidate of legal sciences degree in 2000 by defending a dissertation on "Legal and economic methods of preventing shadow economy" at the Donetsk Institute of Economic and Legal Research.

In June 2003, Pshonka was reappointed as the prosecutor of the Donetsk region. In November of the same year, he became the deputy of Vasilyev, who became the Prosecutor General of Ukraine (Yanukovych led the country's government). In this position, Pshonka was responsible for supervising law enforcement in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Security Service, Tax Police, as well as special units of the State Customs Service and State Border Guard Service in their fight against organized crime and corruption.

In December 2006, Pshonka became the deputy of Alexander Medvedko, who took over as the Prosecutor General of Ukraine. During Medvedko's illness in April 2007, Pshonka temporarily assumed the role of the acting Prosecutor General. However, the political situation changed, and Svyatoslav Piskun was reinstated as the Prosecutor General. In June 2010, after Yanukovych's victory in the presidential elections, Pshonka became the first deputy of Medvedko. Later that year, on November 4, 2010, the Verkhovna Rada appointed Pshonka as the Prosecutor General of Ukraine.

Throughout his career, Pshonka has faced allegations of corruption and connections to organized crime. However, he has denied these claims and emphasized the independence of the Prosecutor's Office from political pressure. Pshonka is married and enjoys swimming, playing football and table tennis, and going for walks in his free time. He is also interested in hunting but mainly uses it as an opportunity to explore the forest.