Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
Former first deputy prime minister of Ukraine and former head of the National Bank Serhiy Arbuzov was elected to the ninth convocation of the Russian State Duma on the list of the Fair Russia party. This was reported by Hlavkom citing the Russian publication Vedomosti.
About the composition of the Fair Russia faction in the parliament of the new convocation, 26 September reported its apparatus chief Ruslan Tatarynnov. According to Vedomosti, the former Ukrainian deputy prime minister is among those who entered the Duma for the first time. Alongside him, mandates went, in particular, to publicist Mykola Starykov. The elections ran from 18 to 20 September, and on 25 September the Central Election Commission approved the distribution of seats: Fair Russia won 17 of them, whereas in the previous convocation the faction had 27. The new deputies will begin work from the first session on 30 September.
Arbuzov was the top candidate in the party’s regional group that the party attributed to the occupied territories of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions, as well as Crimea and Sevastopol. It was from this group that he was nominated.
Career during Yanukovych’s presidency
The former head of the NBU advanced his career during Viktor Yanukovych’s presidency. In December 2010 he headed the National Bank; at the end of 2012 he moved to the government as first deputy prime minister; and after Mykola Azarov’s resignation in January 2014 he became acting prime minister. On 27 February 2014 he was replaced by a new government. Already on 18 September 2013 he was elected to the Political Council of the Party of Regions.
After the Revolution of Dignity Arbuzov left Ukraine. On 29 March 2014 the congress of the Party of Regions expelled him from its ranks along with a number of former high-ranking officials, including Viktor Yanukovych and Mykola Azarov. In November of the same year, in an interview with RIA Novosti Ukraina, he called Russia a “strategic partner” of Ukraine, described reciprocal sanctions as “a road to nowhere,” and spoke in favor of returning to negotiations with Moscow.
In May 2014 Arbuzov was notified of suspicion under part 5 of article 191 of the Criminal Code. According to the investigation’s version, he was accused of embezzling National Bank assets amounting to 220 million hryvnias during the creation and financing of LLC “Bank Television.” In January 2019 the Prosecutor General’s Office completed the pretrial investigation, and in December 2020 the High Anti-Corruption Court annulled the SAP prosecutor’s decision to suspend the pretrial investigation.
On 12 April 2025 President Volodymyr Zelensky enacted the National Security and Defense Council’s decision to impose sanctions against Arbuzov, Andriy Klyuyev, Viktor Polishchuk, and Alyona Shevtsova. These measures provide, in particular, for asset freezes.
Recall that on 4 July Hlavkom reported that the Fair Russia party had nominated Arbuzov as a candidate for the State Duma.
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