Back
Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
People's Deputy Oleksandr Kunytskyi, who in September 2024 left on a business trip abroad, may have returned to Ukraine. This was reported on 9 November by deputy Oleksii Honcharenko, and journalists had earlier written about the lawmaker's disappearance abroad. According to Honcharenko, Kunytskyi is "already in the Rada" — the deputy himself posted videos on social media showing the Verkhovna Rada building and the session hall.
"Deputy Kunytskyi has returned to Ukraine! And you say the program to bring Ukrainians back doesn't work! He was gone for two years! And he's already in the Rada. Now we can do a population census! Almost everyone is home," Honcharenko wrote on his Telegram channel.
The parliament website indicates that during votes on draft laws Kunytskyi's status was "did not vote" — meaning he registered in the system but did not press the voting buttons. The information about Kunytskyi's return was confirmed by People's Deputy Olha Vasylevska-Smahliuk, who also reported it on her Telegram channel.
If the return is finally confirmed, it will put an end to a story that lasted more than two years. Kunytskyi disappeared from the sight of colleagues and journalists after a business trip in September of 2024, and during that time his whereabouts raised questions even among members of the Servant of the People faction.
How Kunytskyi ended up abroad
In September 2024 Kunytskyi left on a business trip to Israel, from where he went to his family, who are in the United States. According to a source, the deputy told the faction he would not return to Ukraine "until the police officers who broke his ribs are punished" — this likely referred to an incident in March 2022 when police detained Kunytskyi for illegally filming a checkpoint. At that time the deputy said he was "ready to give up his mandate."
During registration for elections to the Verkhovna Rada it turned out that Kunytskyi holds Israeli citizenship. The politician insisted that he applied to the Israeli embassy to renounce citizenship, so the court allowed him to participate in the elections. After an investigation by Skhemy in April 2021, Kunytskyi was suspected of sending parliamentary appeals in the interests of a business associated with him, but in July of that year the Pechersk Court of Kyiv closed the proceedings against the deputy, as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.
In October 2023 Prosecutor General Andrii Kostin registered a criminal case against Kunytskyi and his colleague Artem Dmytruk after they got into a fight in Kyiv. They faced a fine, or arrest for up to 6 months, or imprisonment for up to 5 years.
Earlier Informator reported that in the spring Kunytskyi was allegedly found in Canada — according to Honcharenko, the deputy settled in the apartment of a foreign citizen, which was implied by his published declaration. Before that, for almost a year none of his colleagues knew where the parliamentarian was or why he was not attending sessions. Informator also wrote that Honcharenko appealed to the Prosecutor General over threats from Kunytskyi after he reminded him about fleeing the country and his membership on the law enforcement committee.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Нардеп Куницький повернувся в Україну і з’явився у Раді - він був за кордоном з 2024 року". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: Informator.
