Yuriy Lavrenyuk

Yuriy Lavrenyuk is a Ukrainian statesman, Deputy Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine (from May 2016 to October 2019). He was the last deputy of former minister Volodymyr Omelian who still remained on the ministry's team after the formation of the new Honcharuk government.

Born in 1980 in the village of Derman in the Rivne region. He began his service in 1999 in the 1st Territorial Directorate of the State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection of the SBU.

In 2000, he transferred to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, to the criminal investigation unit of the Kamianets-Podilskyi city police department of the MIA Directorate of Ukraine in Khmelnytskyi Oblast, where he served in operational and managerial positions. In 2005 he was transferred to Kyiv.

From 2006 to 2014, he worked as a freelance consultant to the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Combating Organized Crime and Corruption. In 2006, on Yuriy Lavrenyuk's initiative, one of the largest all-Ukrainian non-governmental organizations was created – the All-Ukrainian Special Board on Combating Corruption and Organized Crime.

Former MP Serhii Leshchenko accused Yuriy Lavrenyuk of protecting corruption schemes. In particular, according to Leshchenko, the deputy minister used law enforcement officers under his control to put pressure on company executives in order to gain access to financial flows. Through the creation of so-called "security services", Lavrenyuk's people allegedly siphoned millions of hryvnias out of enterprises.