The Ministry of Veterans Affairs will now be headed by Yulia Laputina. In this post, she replaced Serghiy Bessarab, who previously wrote a letter of resignation, which was later supported by the Verkhovna Rada.
Who is Yulia Laputina?
The new minister was born in Kyiv in 1967. She has a pedagogical and psychological education, a Candidate of Psychological Sciences.
In 1992, Yulia Laputina began serving in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), taking the office of a criminal investigator of the counterintelligence unit. After that she served as a senior officer in Alpha Group (special unit of SBU).
In addition, during her being in Alpha Group, she participated in operations to suppress the separatist putsch in Crimea in 1994.
In 2010-2012 she was the Deputy Head of the Special Operations Center “A” of the SBU.
Laputina is ATO (Anti-Terrorist Operation in Donbas) participant. In September-December 2014, she was the commander of the SBU task force in ATO and carried out assignments to detain members of illegal armed groups.
In 2014, she was appointed Deputy Head of the Department of Counterintelligence Protection of the State's Interests in Cyber Security of the Security Service of Ukraine.
Six years later, on March 25, 2020, she was awarded the rank of Major General. Thus, Yulia Laputina became the second woman general in the history of independent Ukraine (the first was Major General of the Medical Service Lyudmila Shuhaley).
Today she is also a member of the Advisory Council for the Affairs of War Veterans, Families of the Fallen (Deceased) Defenders of Ukraine.
