Ruslan Stefanchuk
Ruslan Oleksiyovych Stefanchuk (Ukrainian: Руслан Олексійович Стефанчук; born 29 October 1975) is a Ukrainian politician and lawyer serving as the chairman of the Verkhovna Rada since October 2021.
Stefanchuk was touted as the ideologue of Volodymyr Zelenskyy's election campaign in the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election. He was elected to the Ukrainian parliament as a member of the Servant of the People party (placed 2nd on the party list) in the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election.
Stefanchuk is one of the authors of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's 2019 election program. He was also the Representative of the President of Ukraine Zelenskyy at the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's national parliament) from 21 May 2019 until 7 October 2021, and is a chairman of the Verkhovna Rada since then.
Early life and education
Ruslan Stefanchuk was born on 29 October 1975 in Ternopil in a family of medics.
He graduated with honors from the Khmelnytskiy School № 18 in 1992. Then he received a law degree from the Khmelnytskyi University of Management and Law in 1997 and then studied Production management at the Khmelnytskyi National University, graduating in 1999.
Until 2019 Stefanchuk was engaged in educational, scientific and legal activities. He worked at the Khmelnytskyi University of Management and Law, the Institute of Legislation of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the National Academy of the Prosecutor's Office of Ukraine, and the Higher School of Advocacy. He was the Deputy Chief Editor of the Law Magazine "Law of Ukraine" and worked as an Assistant of Member of Verkhovna Rada Anatoliy Matviyenko from 2007 to 2012.
Political career
Stefanchuk is a corresponding member of the National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine. Honored Worker of Science and Technology of Ukraine (2017).
Zelenskyy won the election, in the second round of the election he defeated incumbent president Petro Poroshenko with nearly 73% of the vote to Poroshenko's 25%.
In the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election, Stefanchuk was elected into parliament (placed 2nd on the party list) Servant of the People party. His brother Mykola Stefanchuk was (in the same election) elected for the same party in the single-mandate constituency 187 (located in Khmelnytskyi Oblast). In total Servant of the People won 124 seats on the nationwide party list and 130 constituency seats.
On 29 August 2019, Stefanchuk was elected First Deputy Chair of the Verkhovna Rada.
As a chairman of the Verkhovna Rada
On 7 October 2021, the Verkhovna Rada voted to dismiss Dmytro Razumkov from his post as Chairman of the parliament. The following day Stefanchuk was elected Chairman of the parliament with 261 members backing the appointment. On 15 October of the same year, Stefanchuk was appointed as member of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine by President Zelensky.
On the morning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, Stefanchuk was rushed to the Mariinskyi Palace, amid reports of assassination attempts on Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as his role meant he would have to take command of the country had the president been killed.
Talking about the minority rights in the context of the accession of Ukraine into the EU, Stefanchuk said in November 2023 that there cannot be a "Russian ethnic minority" in Ukraine and that "if these people show aggression rather than respect towards Ukraine, then their rights should be correspondingly suppressed."
Following what was supposed to be the expiration of President Zelenskyy's mandate under peacetime conditions on 20 May 2024, Stefanchuk has been touted by Russian president Vladimir Putin as Ukraine's head of state, citing the presidential succession. However, Stefanchuk has rejected Putin's claims, citing the legal inability to hold elections under martial law and the Ukrainian Constitution setting the presidential mandate to last until the election of a successor at the end of martial law.
Personal life
Stefanchuk has two children who are both studying law. Stefanchuk's son is in Ukraine, while his daughter is in Vienna. His daughter knows six languages.