Oleg Tsaryov

On 20 May 2015 Tsaryov announced the termination of the Novorossiya confederation. He stated this was done because the confederation did not comply with the Minsk II accords.

Tsaryov is a former People's Deputy of Ukraine elected for the Party of Regions who was expelled from the party on 7 April 2014. He has been wanted by police since June 2014 for promoting separatism and violence.

His company "Dniprobuminvest" went bankrupt in March 2014.

Tsaryov was a self-nominated candidate in the 2014 Ukrainian presidential election. On 29 March a Party of Regions convention supported Mykhailo Dobkin nomination as a presidential candidate. On 7 April 2014 the political council of that party expelled Tsaryov from the party. On 11 April 2014 Tsaryov traveled to Donetsk and said he was ready to become a leader of the so-called "South-east movement". According to one source quoted by the National Press Agency of Ukraine, Tsaryov also assured separatists in Donetsk that would do everything to disrupt the May 25, 2014 presidential elections. "I'm sure that will be no elections," he said. He then promised that he would create a "central authority" within the center of Donetsk. On 14 April, Oleg Tsaryov was beaten by a mob after an interview in the ICTV building in Kiev. The beating was denied by some, though press agencies published videos of the mob and photos of Oleg Tsaryov half-naked with bruises. After this beating he stated "I am against a third party interfering in the affairs of Ukraine. Until we learn to listen to each other, Ukraine will stand no chance".

On May 13, 2014 Tsaryov was sanctioned by the European Union for calling for the creation of Federal State of Novorossiya. Also in May 2014, a recording of a death threat phone call allegedly made to Tsaryov by the governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast and owner of PrivatBank, Ihor Kolomoisky, began circulating in social media. In the call Kolomoisky tells Tsaryov that there is a bounty of $1 million on his head, and to stay in Moscow if he doesn't want to be killed. Tsaryov said that the call was authentic.

On 3 June 2014 Tsaryov was stripped of his parliamentary immunity by the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's parliament) who also sanctioned his arrest. Tsaryov is now wanted for making "public calls to overthrow the existing constitutional system in Ukraine, change its state borders and stage acts of disobedience, which entailed grave consequences and caused many casualties among law enforcers and peaceful civilians".

On 26 June 2014 Tsaryov became Speaker of the "Unity Parliament" of the self-proclaimed confederation of Donetsk People's Republic and Lugansk People's Republic (in eastern Ukraine) Novorossiya.

Tsaryov was pleased with the so-called anti-protest laws adopted in January 2014, stating that it was good that these laws made non-governmental organizations that accept foreign funds register as "foreign agents" because such funds only benefited the United States.

On 9 December 2013 Tsaryov requested to the Security Service and Foreign Ministry of Ukraine to deport or/and ban foreign organizers and political consultants of the Euromaidan-protests, document scans of which he posted (and later removed) on his Facebook account. Among those named in the document notably included Andreas Umland, Stanislav Belkovsky, Taras Kuzio, Gleb Pavlovsky, and former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, among others.

Tsaryov became a People's Deputy of Ukraine (народний депутат України) in 2002. In 2005 he became head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional branch of the Party of Regions. In 2006, he became a People's Deputy of Ukraine for the Party of Regions.

Tsaryov graduated from the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute in 1992 with a degree in engineering and physics.

Tsaryov started his career in 1992 as an engineer for the preparation of production at "Avteks" (Автекс), a specialized small business in Dnipropetrovsk. Then in 1993 he became head of the Ukrainian financial insurance company "Confidence" (Доверие). After leaving Confidence in 1995, he held a succession of senior positions at the Dnipropetrovsk Computer Centre Ltd (Днепропетровский компьютерный центр), a company called Silicon Valley (Кремниевая долина), and then the Dnipropetrovsk Paper Mill (Днепропетровская бумажная фабрика).

Oleg Anatolyevich Tsaryov (Russian: Олег Анатольевич Царёв ; Oleg Tsarev; Ukrainian: Олег Анатолійович Царьов ; born 2 June 1970) is a Ukrainian businessman, politician and separatist leader in eastern Ukraine.

Tsaryov was born 2 June 1970 in Dnipropetrovsk, in the Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union.

Tsaryov is married to Larissa (born in 1968) and has a daughter (born in 1999) and son (born in 1995) who both study in the United Kingdom. He has another daughter born in 2003.