HVOZD
Victor Ivanovych

May 24, 1959 – May 28, 2021

Victor Ivanovych was born on May 24, 1959 in Ternopil region. After graduating in 1981 from the M. Frunze Kyiv High Combined Arms Command School, V. Hvozd served in the military intelligence in the Trans-Baikal and Carpathian Military Districts as a military translator of a Separate Reconnaissance Battalion on the Mongolian-Chinese border, Commander of a Reconnaissance Company of the Motorized Rifle Regiment, Commander of a Reconnaissance Company of the Separate Reconnaissance Battalion, officer of an Intelligence Command Center of the Military District Headquarters.

In independent Ukraine, since 1991, V. Hvozd had been an officer of the Intelligence Center of the Intelligence Directorate of the Carpathian Military District Headquarters, and in 1993–1995 he took part in peacekeeping operations as part of the UN peacekeeping mission UNPROFOR in the former Yugoslavia. The mission officers performed tasks to control the warring parties in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and fully supported the Ukrainian peacekeeping contingent in Yugoslavia. In 1996, Colonel V. Hvozd was appointed Defense Attaché at the Embassy of Ukraine in Croatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina (concurrently), and since 1999 he had held senior positions at the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. In 2000 he was appointed a Representative of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine at the Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the UN, he became a member of Ukraine’s delegation to the UN Security Council. In 2003 he was appointed Deputy Head of the Main Department for Law Enforcement, Military Formations of the Administration of the President of Ukraine. Since 2006 — the Head of the Department of Military-Technical Cooperation of the Secretariat of the President of Ukraine.

By the Decree of the President of Ukraine, in January 2008 V. Hvozd was appointed Chief of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. Under his leadership, the structure of military intelligence of Ukraine significantly improved and it became the main body for identifying military threats and challenges to national security, reliably defends its interests in the harsh external conditions of the time. As a result of the restructuring and intensification of activities of all military intelligence units of Ukraine, it was possible to raise to a new level its international cooperation on the full range of security issues in order to gain greater opportunities in combating modern threats. Due to disagreement with the views of the then military and political leadership of Ukraine on national security and defense, development of military intelligence and the Armed Forces in August 2010, Lieutenant General V. Hvozd resigned from the Armed Forces.

Victor Hvozd has more than one civil and military higher education: in 1997 he graduated from the Faculty of Law of the Ivan Franko Lviv State University, in 2005 he got a Master’s Degree at the Kyiv University of Economics and Law, in 2009 he graduated from the Military Diplomatic Academy. In 1999 at the Academy of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces he took a course on the armed forces’ participation in peacekeeping operations, and in 2009 — a security course at the Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, USA.

An active participant in the Revolution of Dignity, he dealt with security coordination issues, repeatedly spoke from the rostrum of the Maidan, including on December 1, 2013, at the request of veterans of intelligence of Ukraine. With the beginning of the annexation of Crimea in February 2014, Victor Hvozd was appointed to the position of the Commissioner of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine for the activities of the intelligence agencies of Ukraine. From February 2014 to April 2016, Victor Hvozd was the Chairman of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine, a member of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine. He was the first in Ukraine to head two main intelligence agencies: military intelligence — the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defence and political intelligence — the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine. In the most difficult years of the annexation of Crimea and Russian military aggression in the East of Ukraine, the new leadership had to restructure the Service, introduce new approaches to the organization of its activities, make difficult management decisions to carry out necessary changes and reforms in the SZRU, improve the system of comprehensive and timely information and analytical support for decision-making of the top military-political leadership of the state. At the initiative and under the leadership of V. Hvozd, were improved the legal framework for the organization and activities of intelligence agencies in the face of Russia’s armed aggression, the trust lost over the years by NATO partners was restored, and began the process of Ukraine’s getting full membership in the Euro-Atlantic intelligence community.

Since May 2016, V. Hvozd headed the “Borysfen Intel” Independent Analytical Center for Geopolitical Studies, established on his initiative in 2012. The Center specializes in studying, analyzing, assessing and forecasting the situation in and around Ukraine, its role and place as an important subject of world and European processes, issues of national security and defense of Ukraine and counteracting the Russian hybrid warfare, etc. Since 2015, the Center has been publishing the only printed geopolitical journal in Ukraine — “BINTEL. Geopolitical Analytics Journal” (in Ukrainian and English), its special issues on certain topics (in Ukrainian, English, German and Russian). As the President of the Center, V. Hvozd was a regular participant and speaker at leading international conferences on security issues in Ukraine and in many European countries.

In 2013, V. Hvozd defended his thesis for the degree of Ph.D. in Military Sciences, and in 2019 — Doctor of Military Sciences, specialty “Military Security of the State”. He was the author of more than 30 scientific works, the monograph “Historical, Legal and Political Aspects of the State’s Intelligence Activity” (2018), the book “Ukraine’s Military Intelligence at the Turn of the Third Millennium” (2017), many articles in Ukrainian and foreign publications on military issues of modern geopolitics, national security, defense and intelligence, risks and challenges to Ukraine’s military security in current conditions, counteracting Russian military aggression against Ukraine.

Lieutenant General V. Hvozd was awarded the Order of Merit III class and the Order of Bohdan Khmelnytskyi III class, many medals and awards of the USSR, Ukraine, foreign countries, awards of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, he was awarded the honorary title of “Honored Lawyer of Ukraine”.

He had a great command of English, Croatian, Serbian, Chinese. He is survived by his wife Olga Serghiyivna, two children and two grandchildren.