Oleg Tsarov

According to a 2016 Open Democracy article:

"Tsaryov is a businessman from Dnipropetrovsk who, in his 12 years as a deputy in Ukraine’s parliament, never once swerved from his pro-Russian position. He stood as a candidate in the early presidential election of spring 2014, and was attacked by Ukrainian nationalists several times during his election campaign. Tsaryov then set off to Donetsk, where he became one of the chief propagandists of the south eastern regions’ secession from Ukraine and the creation of “Novorossiya”.

"When Putin advisor Sergei Glazyev was involved in the situation in Donbas, Tsaryov was seen as his protégé. He was appointed to head the “Novorossiya Parliament”, based in Donetsk, whose work was intended to involve deputies elected in the territories controlled by the separatists.

"The idea of the parliament, however, fell through; other regions refused to secede from Ukraine, while the Donetsk and Luhansk regions had retained the political system that had functioned under Viktor Yanukovych. Neither the Donetsk nor the Luhansk elites were prepared to give in to one another, preferring to interact separately with their “advisors from the capital” — only the capital was no longer Kyiv, but Moscow. 



"The “Novorossiya Parliament” only lasted until spring 2015 — there was no provision for it in the Minsk agreements. Tsaryov now lives with his wife and children in Crimea and is very active online, where he churns out anecdotes about his happy family life for his Facebook followers and commentaries about Ukraine for the Russian media."

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