Viktor Slauta

Viktor Andriyovich Slauta (Ukrainian: Віктор Андрійович Слаута; born 2 January 1952) is a Ukrainian politician who was Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food in 2004 and 2010.^[1]

Slauta was born on 2 January 1952 in the village of Zakitne (Lyman Raion, which was then part of the Ukrainian SSR in the Soviet Union.^[2] In 1973, he graduated from V. Dokuchaev Kharkiv National Agrarian University with a degree in agronomy.^[2] Afterwords, he worked in a variety of collective farms, until eventually becoming Second Secretary and later Chairman of the Krasnolymansk City Committee.^[2]

He briefly returned to agriculture in the mid-1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union, becoming general director of "Elevatorzernoprom" and director of the Donetsk office of "Bread of Ukraine".^[2]

In 1988, he was appointed deputy, then later first deputy chair, of the Agro-Industrial Committee of Donetsk Oblast.^[2] He then became Head of the Agricultural Department for the Donetsk Regional State Administration and then Deputy Head of the Donetsk Regional State Administration.^[2]

He returned to politics in the 2002 Ukrainian parliamentary election on the list of For United Ukraine!.^[2] At the time, he was Deputy Governor of Donetsk Oblast.^[2] In 2004, he was appointed Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food by Viktor Yanukovych, which he did until he was dismissed in 2005.^[2] He was re-elected to the Verkhovna Rada in 2006 and later in 2007 for the Party of Regions, serving until 2010.^[2] During those elections, he served as Deputy Prime Minister for the Agro‑Industrial Complex and briefly Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine.^[2]

Following the end of his tenure in the Verkhovna Rada, he served as an advisor to the then President of Ukraine, Yanukovych, until his dismissal following Euromaidan.^[2] Since then, he has been President of the Ukrainian National Technology Platform "AGRO-FOOD".^[3]