The first Prime Minister of Ukraine Vitold Fokin has died

The first Prime Minister of Ukraine Vitold Fokin has died. He was 92 years old.

This was reported by granddaughter Maria Fokina, without specifying the cause of death.

Vitold Fokin served as Prime Minister from October 1990 to October 1992 during the presidency of Leonid Kuchma.

After becoming prime minister, Fokin worked as a research fellow at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, was president of the International Fund for Humanitarian and Economic Relations between Ukraine and the Russian Federation, and a member of the Supreme Economic Council under the President of Ukraine (1997–2001).

Later, in 2020, Vitold Fokin joined the Ukrainian delegation at the talks in Minsk. After that, in an interview with the already sanctioned publication Strana.ua, he stated that a special status should be granted to the entire Donbas, including the territories controlled by Ukraine. He also advocated a full amnesty for participants in the events in the east. In his opinion, such steps towards Russia will push it to abandon local elections in the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions until the state border is returned to Ukrainian control.

A month later, President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree removing the first Prime Minister Vitold Fokin from the Ukrainian delegation. The day before this decision, Fokin arrived at a meeting of the Verkhovna Radaʼs Committee on the Organization of State Power and said that he had seen no evidence that a war was going on between Ukraine and Russia in Donbas. As a result, the committee adopted an appeal to President Volodymyr Zelensky demanding that Fokin be recalled from the Minsk Group. At that time, Fokin stated that politicians had set up "high-ranking skanky guys" against him.

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