Petro Vanat, a Ukrainian lawmaker with the People’s Front faction, died on Feb. 8 at the age of 79, the party’s representatives said.
Vanat was the oldest among 81 lawmakers in the People’s Front fraction. A seasoned public official from Zaporizhia, a city 520 kilometers south from Kyiv, Vanat was elected lawmaker in November 2014 on the People’s Front party list. He was 45th on the list.
Vanat leaves his wife Liudmyla and two grown-up sons, Oleksandr and Maksym.
Unlike many other Ukrainian lawmakers, Vanat rarely missed parliament’s meetings. According to the Verkhovna Rada website, over the past two years of his activities as an MP, Vanat submitted to parliament 56 bills and made 20 amendments.
“I learned with deep regret about the death of the member of our team, the deputy Petro Vanat, a kind and sincere man, a true patriot of our country,” the People’s Front leader and ex-Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk wrote on Facebook. “This is a big loss for all of us. My deepest condolences to the relatives and to all who knew Petro Mykhaylovych. Eternal memory.”
Member of Volya Narodu parliamentary fraction Yaroslav Moskalenko wrote on Facebook on Feb. 8 that Vanat “was an extraordinary and strong personality who worked devotedly for the good of Ukraine.” Vanat’s party colleague Oleksandr Sochka characterized him as “warm-hearted.”
Vanat will be buried in Zaporizhia on Feb. 10 at 12:30 p.m.
