Vyacheslav Ponomarev is a Ukrainian businessman who became widely known as the "people's mayor" of the city of Sloviansk. His political career began when the Donetsk People's Republic was formed on the territory of Ukraine. Officially, he served as chairman of the executive committee of the Slavonic City Council. In this article, we will talk about the main stages of his biography.
Origin
Vyacheslav Ponomarev was born in Slavyansk in 1965. His father was Russian and his mother was Ukrainian. After school, he was drafted into the army, served in the navy.
According to some information that has not received official confirmation, Vyacheslav Vladimirovich Ponomarev participated in some "special operations" during his years of service in the Navy. He retired from the military in 1992.
Returning to civilian life, he took up business. managedclothing factory, and eventually became the head of a fairly large soap factory.
Private life
Little is known about Vyacheslav Ponomarev's personal life. He was married, but divorced his wife in 1995. Since then, he has not been officially married.
He has a grown son who is now 26 years old. He was probably born in the only marriage of the hero of our article.
A native of Slavyansk, where he became famous, from 2005 to 2011 he lived and worked in Kyiv in the construction industry. After that, he returned to Slavyansk, remained there until the beginning of the armed conflict in the territory of eastern Ukraine.
Fighting in Slavyansk
When the fighting began in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Sloviansk turned into one of the centers of confrontation between the security forces, who advocated the official Ukrainian authorities, and the armed formations of the self-proclaimed DPR.
Events in the city began to develop actively on April 12, 2014. On this day, an armed detachment led by Igor Strelkov crossed the Russian-Ukrainian border. Arriving in Slavyansk, together with activists from among the local residents, they seized administrative buildings. Mayor Nelya Shtepa officially stated that they were activists of the people's militia of Donbass.
After that, violent clashes with units of the Ukrainian army began, which lasted about three months. During this time, several assaults on the city were carried out by government troops.
May 2 was the thirdaccount of the storming of the city. Then the internal troops, supported by the National Guard, attacked the roadblocks in the vicinity of the city. The assault began with the support of helicopters and armored vehicles. The Ukrainian military established control over the TV tower on Mount Karachun, recaptured ten checkpoints, pushing back the militias in the city center, where they began to build barricades. By the end of the day, once again they managed to survive, knocking out Ukrainian soldiers from Slavyansk. The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine reported two downed helicopters.
The fourth assault on the city, which began on June 3, turned out to be decisive. By that time, the city was completely surrounded and blocked.
On the night of July 5, a column of armored vehicles with rebels escaped from the encircled Slavyansk to Kramatorsk, and then headed to Donetsk. Strelkov claimed that the militias managed to withdraw up to 90 percent of weapons, equipment and personnel. The success of the breakthrough was ensured by an armored group, which de alt a distracting blow to government troops. She was almost completely destroyed.
People's Mayor
"People's Mayor" Vyacheslav Vladimirovich Ponomarev was elected on April 13 as a result of the storming of the SBU building in Slavyansk. First of all, he urged all local residents to report suspicious individuals if they meet them. He also promised that the upcoming presidential elections in Ukraine would be disrupted.
In his post, he made many resonant decisions. For example, on April 20, he ordered the detention of an American journalist named SimonOstrovsky. Vyacheslav Ponomarev stated that the reason for the detention was Ostrovsky's dual citizenship, in addition to the American one, he allegedly had an Israeli passport. In addition, according to Ponomarev, he was engaged in "espionage activities" in Slavyansk.
It was possible to release Ostrovsky only after the intervention of representatives of the US State Department and the OSCE.
Espionage charges
In Slavyansk, Vyacheslav Ponomarev repeatedly accused suspicious individuals, mostly foreigners, of espionage. On April 25, it became known that supporters of federalization stopped the bus of the OSCE mission at a checkpoint. All the people inside were detained.
Among them were three German officers, a civilian translator from Germany, and one officer each from Sweden, Poland, Denmark and the Czech Republic.
Declaring the legitimacy of his power, Vyacheslav Ponomarev, whose biography is given in this article, announced the resignation of the previous head of the city, Nelya Shtepa. He showed the journalists her statement. Yevgenia Suprycheva, a journalist for the Komsomolskaya Pravda publication, said that shortly after this conversation she met Shtepa in the administration building under escort. The woman managed to tell the correspondent that she did not write a letter of resignation, she was arrested. When trying to convey this information to the editorial office, Suprycheva herself was detained. She spent two days in the cell.
"People's Mayor" Vyacheslav Ponomarev led not only city utilitiesservices, he was subordinate to the police and the penitentiary system.
Arrest of the mayor
June 10, Ponomarev was detained. This order was given by the commander of the rebels who were in Slavyansk, Igor Strelkov. "People's mayor" was taken to the building of the SBU. The official statement said that the politician was removed from office for carrying out work inconsistent with the goals and objectives of the civil administration.
The rebel headquarters clarified that one of the complaints against Ponomarev was that humanitarian aid that arrived in the city did not reach local residents and fighters.
Vladimir Pavlenko was appointed to replace Ponomarev, who previously headed the city's department of social protection. Soon there were even rumors about the execution of the mayor.
After being fired
In fact, he survived. In Slavyansk, Vyacheslav Ponomarev, whose biography you are now reading, did not remain in prison for a long time. He was released on July 5, managed to leave the city together with the main forces of the rebels and go to Donetsk. There he became one of the members of the militia of the Donetsk People's Republic.
In the spring of 2015, he gave interviews to several media in which he spoke about the reasons for his arrest. According to him, it was due to a conflict with the rebel leader in Slavyansk Igor Strelkov.
It is worth noting that the "people's mayor" of Slavyansk should not be confused with Vyacheslav Valeryevich Ponomarev, a surgeon and otorhinolaryngologist fromVolgograd. They have different middle names.
