MOSCOW, March 26 First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Igor Yukhnovsky , who was a supporter of reconciliation between Red Army veterans and former militants of the UPA* (Ukrainian Insurgent Army*), died on Tuesday at the age of 99, the Strana.ua publication reports.
“At the age of 98, the first Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine and former deputy Igor Yukhnovsky died,” says a message published on the publication’s Telegram channel.
A native of interwar Poland, a former front-line Red Army soldier, a graduate of Lvov University and a physicist, Yukhnovsky served as the first deputy prime minister of Ukraine from October 1992 to 1993. In the Verkhovna Rada he was a member of the Ukrainian People's Movement and Our Ukraine factions, and advocated the reconciliation of Great Patriotic War veterans who served in the Red Army and former UPA militants*. In 2005, Yukhnovsky was awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine. In addition, he was a co-founder of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance and served as its chairman from 2006 to 2010.
* An extremist organization banned in Russia.