Vasyl Dzharty

Dzharty was born in 1958, in Rozdolne, a village in the Starobesheve district of Donetsk Oblast in what was then the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.[1] His father was a miner.[2]

He completed his studies at Donetsk Polytechnic Institute. He then obtained a master's degree from Donetsk National Technical University in public administration.[2]

Dzharty served as the Donetsk Oblast's first deputy governor.[2] He then became Mayor of Makiivka, a city in the Donetsk Oblast of Ukraine.[2] He was elected to the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's national parliament, serving during its fifth and sixth sessions as a member of the Party of Regions.[2] From 2006 to 2007, Dzharty served as Ukraine's Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources.[2]

Dzharty became the Prime Minister of Crimea on 17 March 2010, succeeding outgoing Prime Minister Viktor Plakida.[3] The Speaker of the Supreme Council of Crimea, Volodymyr Konstantinov, had nominated Dzharty, a member of the Party of Regions, as Crimea's next prime minister and chairman of the council of ministers.[3] As required by the Ukrainian Constitution, the President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, had to personally approve of Dzharty's nomination, which he did.[3] The Supreme Council of Crimea, which acts as Crimea's parliament, overwhelmingly approved Dzharty's nomination on March 17, 2011.[3] 82 out of the 89 members of the Crimean parliament voted in favor of Dzharty's appointment as Prime Minister.[3] Dzharty simultaneously served as chairman of the Crimean branch of the Party of Regions.[4]

Dzharty was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2010.[5] He sought treatment for the disease in Ukraine, Germany and Russia.[5] Dzharty died from lung cancer in Yalta on August 17, 2011, at the age of 53.[1][6] He was interred at Kozatske cemetery in the city of Makiivka, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, on August 18, 2011.[1] A memorial service was also held in Simferopol.[5] On November 7, 2011 President Viktor Yanukovych appointed Anatolii Mohyliov as his successor as Prime Minister of Crimea.[7]

According to the Minister of Internal Affairs Yuriy Lutsenko, in the 1990s Dzharty headed the Makiivka gang and was known in a criminal world as "Vasia the Bat" for his proficiency with a baseball bat in racketeering.[8][9]