Tetiana Chornovol

In the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election Chornovol was placed 27 on the party list of European Solidarity. But in the election they won 23 seats on this list, so she did not return to parliament.

Prosecutor General's Office of Yuriy Lutsenko succeeded in May 2017 - $1.5 billion were confiscated into the State Budget of Ukraine as part of the investigation into the actions of the criminal organization of ex-president Yanukovych, with the efforts of prosecutor Kostyantyn Kulyk.

In 2017, Tetiana Chornovol strongly criticized the blockade of trade with companies located in Some districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. She tried to influence the public opinion, which, in her belief, falsely supported the so-called blockade on blood'. The MP spoke at rallies in Avdiivka, Kramatorsk, and Mariupol. According to Chornovol, this blockade was initiated by the FSS. It leveled Ukraine's tactical victory in the hybrid war. After all, factories and mines located in the occupied territory, but paid taxes to the budget of Ukraine, as well as supplied raw materials and scarce anthracite for enterprises in Ukraine, went under the control of an aggressor state.

On December 22, 2016, Tetiana Chornovol's bill 5129 was adopted, which destroyed the scheme for obtaining extra profits by alternative energy companies created by the Klyuyev brothers during the Yanukovych government.

In 2016, it even led to the suspension of factories for the repair and modernization of military equipment.

In 2015, she initiated a criminal prosecution of People's Deputy Oleksandr Onyshchenko and the head of the State Fiscal Service Roman Nasirov on behalf of NABU for non-payment of the billions of taxes on gas and oil extraction of firms under the control of Onyshchenko, as well as the illegal restructuring of these debts to Nasirov.

Together with the chairman of the committee, Serhii Pashynskyi, in 2015, initiated a bill on the special confiscation of Yanukovych's assets in the state budget in the form of bonds worth $1.5 billion, arrested in the banks of Ukraine after the Maidan. For more than two years Chornovol has been struggling to confiscate these funds, which was only made in May 2017. Chornovol was the author of a number of bills (3025, 4057, 4811, 4890, 5557,) which established the legal mechanism for the confiscation of these funds, and also inherited the laws of many Western European countries regarding the confiscation of unjustified assets. However, no bill was supported by the Verkhovna Rada. Chornovol stated about the influence of such people from Yanukovych's environment as Andriy Portnov, Sergiy Kurchenko, and Oleksandr Onyschenko in order to prevent the confiscation of these assets.

In 2015, she became the protagonist of the documentary "Breaking Point: The War for Democracy in Ukraine" directed by Mark Jonathan Harris and Oles Sanin. The film is about the way Ukrainians behaved during the 2014 Ukrainian revolution and Russian military aggression.

From 2014 until 2019 she was a member of the parliamentary faction of the party "People's Front", also member of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on national security and defense. Deputy Chairman of the Interim Commission of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on investigation of the theft of public funds in 2011-2014, when providing services of collecting hazardous hexachlorobenzene waste in Kalush district, Ivano-Frankivsk region; Deputy Member of the Permanent Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization; member of the inter-parliamentary relations with China.

Late on 25 December Chornovol was prepared for a series of reconstructive surgeries on her nose and right eye orbit, and was recovering from severe concussion. By 30 December, Chornovol was transferred out of intensive care but remained in hospital due to severe hypersomnia. On 7 January 2014, she was ready to be discharged from hospital, though still requiring outpatient treatment. However she refused to leave. After the assault, Canadian physician Dr. Richard Hareychuk provided a first hand account of how he raised money for Chornovol through the Ukrainian community in Toronto, arranged for an interview for her on CBC radio from Ukraine, and traveled to meet her on 17 January 2014.

On 21 February 2014, when Euromaidan protesters raided the Mezhyhirya presidential residence of Viktor Yanukovych, Euromaidian activists and investigators from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project discovered "black lists" of journalists and activists involved in the oppositions, with an individual dossier on Chornovol, with photographs and the license plate of her car.

On 5 March 2014, Chornovol was appointed head of Ukrainian government's National Anti-Corruption Committee by the Yatsenyuk Government. She resigned on 18 August 2014. Chornovol said that "there is no political will in Ukraine to carry out a hard-edged, large-scale war against corruption."

Chornovol became a founding member of the new party People's Front on 10 September 2014, 46 days before the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election. In this election she was elected into parliament as the runner up on the electoral list of People's Front, second to prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

In 2014 Foreign Policy magazine included Chornovol into top 100 thinkers - people who changed the world. She was awarded in the nomination "Those who defy" for her fight against the Yanukovych regime and corruption.

Chornovol is a widowed mother of two. Her husband, Mykola Berezovyi, a volunteer fighter in the Azov Battalion, was killed on 10 August 2014 during the fighting in eastern Ukraine. Chornovol and her husband met at a political rally. Their younger child was born in October 2010.

On 25 December 2013, Chornovol was the victim of a much published and condemned severe beating.

Reacting to Chornovol's 25 December 2013 beating, Ukrayinska Pravda and Chornovol's husband announced that they "suspected each and every person whom Tetiana Chornovol wrote about" personally, including President Yanukovych, in "ordering that attack", until proven otherwise.

On 1 December 2013, Chornovol was widely reported smashing windows at Kiev City Hall in the course of protesters' attempts to seize the building. As she later explained to journalist colleagues, storming and occupying city hall was necessary for warming activists from freezing temperatures (the building was used for this purpose from then on).

In the early morning of 25 December 2013 at 01:30 AM Chornovol was severely beaten by a group of men who dragged her from her car near Boryspil International Airport in Boryspil outside Kiev. The attack provoked massive outcry in Ukraine and around the globe.

The driver of the car that rammed Chornovol off the road was arrested on 25 December 2013, who upon police questioning identified the other two attackers, one of whom was arrested. In total five suspected attackers were detained by the Ukrainian police. According to police investigator Mykola Chynchyn, one of the suspects formerly belonged to a criminal organization led by Viktor Rybalko; and added "The Klitschko brothers allegedly were closely involved in Rybalko's organization". Chynchyn also stated that opposition lawmaker Mykola Knyazhytsky, Volodymyr Polochaninov and David Zhvania were connected to a suspect. Serhiy Kotenko (a former co-owner of TVi) is a brother of one of the suspects. Vitali Klitschko vehemently denied links to the suspects and stated that he would sue Chynchyn for slander, libel and defamation of character.

Other articles by Chornovol addressed the alleged organized crime background of then-President Viktor Yanukovych and reported on his lavish countryside property. According to a story in the New York Times, in August 2012 Chornovol "scaled the walls of Mr. Yanukovych's then residential compound, which includes 345 acres of forested hills along the Dnieper River and is called 'Mezhyhirya' after the park where it is situated, and spent nearly three hours wandering the property and taking photographs before being detained by security". Chornovol was the first investigative journalist researching Mezhyhirya; she started work on the topic in 2006.

Chornovol unsuccessfully ran in the 2012 parliamentary election in the suburban Lviv Oblast constituency Horodok, representing the oppositional Batkivshchyna party. She came second after non-partisan Yaroslav Dubnevych, who got 47.04% of the votes against Chornovol's 38.88%.

In 2011-2013, Chornovol participated in several risky protests against illegal land development, historical architecture destruction, and local government oppression in the city of Kiev, including the seizure of a tower crane over the Gostynyi Dvir and occupying a high-rise cornice of the Kiev City Council assembly hall (both by climbing). While she was climbing the crane, construction workers threw bricks at her but missed. She was removed from the council assembly hall cornice by firemen.

In 2008, a judgment was obtained from the High Court of Justice in London after Obozrevatel refused to retract false and libelous statements in articles by Chornovol alleging that Rinat Akhmetov was connected to criminal activity and violence. Chornovol had interviewed his former classmates and neighbors, and delved into his early years. Following court pressure, Obozrevatel issued an official apology stating, "The editorial hereby admits that there was unchecked and false information about Rinat Akhmetov present in the … articles … We hereby give our apologies to Rinat Akhmetov for the problems resulting from the above-mentioned publications." Chornovol refused to issue an apology or acknowledge any wrongdoing. Obozrevatel said it was not invited or informed of the date of the court hearing, and claimed that the decisions of British judges are not legitimate in Ukraine.

In 2004, she began specializing in investigative journalism, contributing to several Ukrainian online newspapers, including Ukrayinska Pravda, Levyi Bereg and Obozrevatel. Her focus topics are suspicious personal wealth of Ukrainian politicians, public servants, and businessmen, as well as their involvement in crime.

In 2001, she graduated from the Faculty of Journalism of the Kiev International Institute of Linguistics and Law.

From 2001 to 2004, she led the "Theme of the week" heading in the "Peak" magazine.

Chornovol participated in all major patriotic/anti-corruption actions in Ukraine since late 1990s, including Ukraine without Kuchma (2001), the Orange Revolution (2004), the 2011 protests against Russian language use expansion, and Euromaidan protests. During "Ukraine without Kuchma" (while still with the UNA-UNSO), she handcuffed herself to the busy rails in the Kiev Passenger Railway Station with a fellow female protester.

Tetiana Mykolayivna Chornovol (Ukrainian: Тетя́на Микола́ївна Чорново́л ; born 4 June 1979 in Kiev, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union) is a Ukrainian journalist and civic activist, and one of the leaders in the Euromaidan protest campaign. She is known for investigative reports about corruption in Ukraine, as well as for her adventurous direct actions. In 2014, she was elected to the Verkhovna Rada.