Serhiy Leshchenko

Life and career

Born in Kyiv in 1980, Leshchenko graduated from the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. He worked as a reporter for the Novyi Kanal in 2000. Since September 4, he works for the internet newspaper Ukrayinska Pravda as the deputy editor. Known for investigative journalism conducted including jointly with Mustafa Nayem. He also writes for OpenDemocracy.net.

Leshchenko was one of the organizers of the (late 2013 to early 2014) Euromaidan demonstrations.

Leshchenko was included in the electoral list of Petro Poroshenko Bloc and elected to the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's parliament) in the 26 October 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election. He was one of dozens of Euromaidan activists who came to parliament to try to oversee reform to turn Ukraine into a modern European state. Although formally belonging to the party that supports Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko; in parliament Leshchenko became one of the biggest critics of Poroshenko's presidency.

In August 2016 Leshchenko joined the (political party) Democratic Alliance. From Autumn 2015 until June 2016 he had been part of an attempt to form a political party around then Governor of Odessa Oblast Mikheil Saakashvili with members of the parliamentary group Interfactional Union "Eurooptimists", Democratic Alliance and possibly Self Reliance until this projection collapsed in June 2016.

In September 2016 Leshchenko became embroiled in a scandal over buying a luxury apartment he could not have afforded, but claimed had been loaned money for.

The real estate scandal

On September 6, 2016 was announced that Serhiy Leshchenko bought a luxury apartment in new building in the historic center of Kyiv area of 192 square meters 7.5 million UAH (300 000 USD). According to his tax declaration he had no money to buy the apartment. According to the deputy, "half of the amount of a loan were from the founder of Ukrayinska Pravda (Ukrainian Truth) Olena Prytula for 10 years." Another part of the funds - his savings as a former co-owner of the resource "Ukrayinska Pravda " and the rest - the money gave his girlfriend, Anastasia Topolskaya - DJ. According to tax declarations of Olena, Anastasiya and Serhiy they had to work 18 years to buy such appartment.

Trump-Manafort blackmail scandal

On February 23, 2017 it was revealed that Donald Trump campaign advisor Paul Manafort had received text messages threatening to expose Manafort’s financial arrangement with Ukraine’s former president, Viktor Yanukovych, as well as an alleged 2012 meeting between Trump and a close Yanukovych associate named Serhiy Tulub. The texts, received by Manafort's daughter and signed by a 'Sergii', hoped to work out an arrangement in exchange for keeping this information from authorities. Leshchenko denied that he sent the texts or having involvement in the scandal, while Manafort did confirm the authenticity of the texts hacked from his daughter’s phone and confirmed he had received similar messages directly. The texts were published online after Manafort's daughter's phone was hacked.

Books