Lyapas to Tabachnyk: Exactly 15 Years Ago a Student Hit the Minister with a Bouquet. How It Happened

15 years ago, on 22 September 2011, a 17-year-old first-year student of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Daria Stepanenko, struck Education Minister Dmytro Tabachnyk with a bouquet of chrysanthemums at an international forum in Kyiv. This action became a symbol of student resistance to the pro-Russian course of the authorities. “Hlavkom” recalls how it happened.

The incident occurred during a forum of education ministers from European countries in Kyiv, when representatives of the Council of Europe were delivering opening remarks. Stepanenko pulled Tabachnyk aside and struck him in the face with the bouquet. After that, security handed the student over to the militsiya.

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Later Stepanenko said the action had been planned in advance. She was a member of the artistic “Brotherhood of Saint Luke” and called the flower strike a nonviolent protest action.

The student explained her actions as a protest against Tabachnyk’s policies. According to her, it was not only about his work in the field of education but also about his public statements, which she considered anti-Ukrainian. Stepanenko also reported pressure on the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.

That same day, Verkhovna Rada deputy Andriy Parubiy said the student was released from the militsiya under his written obligation. According to available reports, no administrative protocol was drawn up regarding her actions.

Screenshot: Radio Liberty

Screenshot: Radio Liberty

We remind you, Dmytro Tabachnyk is a Ukrainian politician who headed the Ministry of Education and Science, Youth and Sports in 2010–2014. He was a member of the Party of Regions and a People’s Deputy from that political force. His statements regarding Ukrainian history, nationalism, and language policy were repeatedly the subject of sharp criticism.

After the start of the full-scale invasion, according to the SBU, Tabachnyk consulted leaders of Russian occupation administrations in Kherson and Zaporizhia and cooperated with Russian special services. In November 2022 the SBU announced charges against him in absentia for treason under martial law. Among other things, the investigation said he took part in preparing documents for conducting an illegal “referendum” in the occupied territories.

In November 2022 former Education Minister Dmytro Tabachnyk was notified of suspicion of treason. According to the investigation, he helped collaborators in the occupied parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. This is stated in the suspicion published on the Office of the Prosecutor General’s website.

In January 2023 the court, at the request of the SBU, froze Tabachnyk’s assets totaling more than $2 million. This included real estate, land plots, and funds in foreign currency. According to the SBU, some assets had previously been transferred to relatives to avoid possible confiscation.

In February 2023 President Volodymyr Zelensky deprived Tabachnyk of Ukrainian citizenship along with a number of former senior officials from Viktor Yanukovych’s era. The SBU said these were individuals who held Russian citizenship.

In April 2023 it became known that Tabachnyk had become an advisor to the Russia-appointed “governor” of the occupied part of Zaporizhia region, Yevhen Balytsky. According to Melitopol mayor Ivan Fedorov, Tabachnyk also joined the Russian party United Russia and ran for election there on the occupied territory.

In November 2023 Zelensky implemented NSDC sanctions against Tabachnyk. Measures applied to him included asset freezes, restrictions on trade operations, a ban on transferring capital abroad, and a number of other economic restrictions.

In April 2024 the High Anti-Corruption Court satisfied the Ministry of Justice’s lawsuit and confiscated Tabachnyk’s property. Transferred to the state were, among other things, half of an apartment in Kyiv, five land plots and a house in Kozyn with an area of 672 sq. m, nearly $144 thousand on a bank account, as well as property rights worth tens of millions of hryvnias. Some assets had been registered in Tabachnyk’s mother’s name.

In April 2025 Hlavkom also wrote about Tabachnyk’s business in occupied Crimea. According to Russian registries, at the end of March 2025 a limited liability company “Crimean Dairy Company” was registered in Simferopol. 15% of the company belonged to Tabachnyk himself, 75% to Liel-FM LLC, which, according to the investigation, is in his business orbit, and another 10% to his long-time business partner Volodymyr Kazyuk.

Journalists established a connection between Tabachnyk and Kazyuk from earlier agricultural projects in Crimea. Overall, the investigation spoke of several companies linked to Tabachnyk, including “Agrostandard,” “Tavrida-Center,” and “Vohni Stolytsi.” The main direction of his business in the occupied territories was said to be the agricultural sector.

In April 2025 Hlavkom wrote that Dmytro Tabachnyk was expanding business in occupied Crimea. According to Russian registries, at the end of March 2025 a limited liability company “Crimean Dairy Company” was registered in Simferopol, 15% of which belonged to Tabachnyk. Another 75% of the company belonged to Liel-FM LLC, which, according to the investigation, is also connected to the former minister.

In March 2026 the former minister again appeared in the Russian information space with propagandistic statements about Ukraine.

Separately, “Toronto Television” reported links between Tabachnyk and the FSB. According to investigators, he cooperated with the Russian security service even before the full-scale invasion and passed contacts of Ukrainian university rectors to its representatives. The piece also mentioned contacts of the former minister with Oleg Kozlov, whom journalists called an employee of the 5-th service of the FSB.