12 Facts About Petro Symonenko

Petro Mykolayovych Symonenko is a Ukrainian politician and the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine.

Petro Symonenko became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1978, and worked as a party functionary in the 1980s.

Petro Symonenko has been the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine since 1993.

Petro Symonenko is the chairman of the Communist Party Faction in the Verkhovna Rada.

Petro Symonenko has been a Ukrainian delegate to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

In late 2002, Viktor Yushchenko, Oleksandr Moroz, Yulia Tymoshenko, and Petro Symonenko issued a joint statement concerning "the beginning of a state revolution in Ukraine".

Petro Symonenko's party left the alliance, as Symonenko was against a single candidate from the alliance in the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election; the other three parties remained allies, at least until July 2006.

Petro Symonenko was re-elected to the Verkhovna Rada in the 2007 Ukrainian parliamentary election.

Later the same day, Petro Symonenko's car was attacked by a mob with baseball bats and Molotov cocktails as he left a TV interview.

In October 2022, Petro Symonenko took part in the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties in Havana, Cuba.

Petro Symonenko assets were blocked and he was stripped of his Ukrainian state awards on 19 January 2025 by a decree of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

In May 2012, Petro Symonenko defended the deportation of the Crimean Tatars, saying that this measure saved Crimean Tatars because otherwise a civil war would have started.