Oleksiy Goncharenko is a Ukrainian politician, deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of the VIII and IX convocations, chairman of the Odesa Regional Council (2014), deputy of the Odesa City Council of the V and VI convocations (2006 – 2014).
Place of Birth, Education
He was born on September 16, 1980 in Odessa. He received his school education in several educational institutions. At first, he attended secondary school No. 62, later continued his studies at school No. 35, and completed his secondary education at Odesa gymnasium No. 2.
After graduating from school, he entered the Odessa National Medical University, where he received a specialty in pediatrics. He completed his studies in 2002. Subsequently, he continued his education at the Academy of National Economy under the Government of the Russian Federation (RF), where in 2005 he received a diploma in Finance and Credit.
Career
In the period from 1999 to 2001, Goncharenko worked at the Odessa ambulance station. Later, he decided to devote himself to political activities, heading the youth wing of the Green Party of Ukraine in the Odesa region.
Political Activities
In 2002, he took part in the elections for the first time, nominating his candidacy for the Odessa City Council, but did not receive the necessary voter support. After that, he began working as an assistant to the deputy.
In 2005, he headed the city branch of the Soyuz party in Odessa. At the end of the same year, she joined the Party of Regions.
From 2005 to 2014, Goncharenko was a member of the Party of Regions. In the same year, he headed the public organization “Quality of Life”. In 2006, he won a deputy mandate in the Odessa City Council, representing the “Regionals”.
In 2010, he became a deputy of the Odesa Regional Council, again from the same political force, and took the post of deputy chairman of the regional council. In 2012, he ran for the Verkhovna Rada as a candidate from the Party of Regions, but did not receive enough votes to be elected a people’s deputy.
In February 2014, against the backdrop of the events of Euromaidan, Goncharenko left the post of first deputy chairman of the Odesa Regional Council and left the ranks of the Party of Regions. A few months later, he was elected to the Verkhovna Rada on the list of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc.
In 2015, he joined the Permanent Delegation of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).
In the 2019 parliamentary elections, he again nominated himself, this time as a non-partisan self-nominee, and won a parliamentary mandate. In the Verkhovna Rada of the IX convocation, he joined the European Solidarity faction.
In the 2020 local elections, Honcharenko ran for the Odesa Regional Council under the first number on the European Solidarity list, but eventually refused the deputy mandate.
In 2022, he received the position of Vice-President of the PACE Committee on Migration, Refugees and Displaced Persons.
At the beginning of 2024, he was elected president of this committee, and he also became a member of the PACE Bureau.
Detention in Russia
On March 1, 2015, Goncharenko was illegally detained by police in Moscow during a funeral procession dedicated to the memory of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was killed the day before.
After his arrest, he was transferred to the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, where the so-called “procedural actions” related to the events in Odesa on May 2, 2014 were carried out. This violated the diplomatic immunity granted to Honcharenko as a delegate to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and contradicted the norms of international law.
In the evening of the same day, Honcharenko was released on bail from the Ukrainian embassy. Already on March 2, 2015, the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) of Russia announced that it had no claims against the detained Ukrainian people’s deputy.
Marital Status
He is married to Olga Goncharenko. He has two sons, Alexei and Kirill.
Goncharenko’s father, Oleksiy Kostusev, is a former “regional” and mayor of Odesa from 2010 to 2013 Odesa.
