The deputy head of President Petro Poroshenko’s administration, Andriy Taranov, was killed on Sept. 18 in a jet ski accident on the Dnipro River.
Taranov’s jet
ski crashed into a barge near the Havansky Bridge in the central part of Kyiv.
He died of a chest injury.
Taranov had
been on vacation and was supposed to return to work on the next day, Sept. 19.
In the
Presidential Administration, Taranov focused on defense and security issues. He
took up his position in 2014.
Poroshenko
expressed his condolences and described Taranov as one of the best defenders of
Ukraine. He said that Taranov coordinated defense and law enforcement agencies
and contributed to the establishment of special operations units, the development
of highly mobile landing troops, the reform of intelligence gathering, and the liberation
of soldiers and civilians from torture in the occupied territories and Russia.
“Unfortunately,
most of the accomplishments of General Taranov remain classified,” added
Poroshenko.
Lawmaker Mustafa
Nayyem described Taranov as “modest, quiet, thoughtful … always ready to
support and advise those on the frontline.”
Millionaire
businessman Vsevolod Kozhemyako said that Taranov was “a true military officer,
an intellectual, an intelligence professional” and his death is a big loss for
Ukraine.
Taranov served
in Ukraine’s army and in Ukraine’s UN-mandated peacekeeping contingent in the
former Yugoslavia. From 2006 to 2012 he worked as the chief of security at
Russia’s Renaissance Capital investment bank, which quit Ukraine in 2013.
Before
joining the Presidential Administration in 2014, he worked for a short time as
general director of staff at Kyiv’s Boryspil International Airport and as first
deputy head of the State Security Service of Ukraine.
In the
Presidential Administration, Taranov was responsible for working with security
and law enforcement. Since the beginning of the Anti-Terrorist Operation, as
Ukraine calls the military action in the Donbas, he worked on training units of
the Ukrainian armed forces and the Interior Ministry. He was also assigned as a
defense attaché at the Ukrainian embassy in Israel.
The
Presidential Administration refused to say if Taranov left any family, saying
that this information was private.
