Vitaliy Andriyovych Masol (Ukrainian: Віталій Андрійович Масол; 14 November 1928 – 21 September 2018) was a Soviet-Ukrainian politician who served as leader of Ukraine on two occasions. He held various posts in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, most notably the Head of the Council of Ministers, which is the equivalent of today's Prime Minister, from 1987 until late 1990, when he was forced to resign. He was later Prime Minister of Ukraine, confirmed in that post on 16 June 1994. He resigned from that post on 1 March 1995.[1]
Masol was a member of the Communist Party of Ukraine.[4] In 1972, he became deputy chairman of the state planning committee in Ukraine at the invitation of First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine, Vladimir Shcherbitsky. Shcherbitsky had intended to make him deputy minister for oil but decided that there was a more urgent vacancy on the committee. Masol later became chair of the committee and a member of the commission in charge of decontamination following the Chernobyl disaster. Masol became Deputy Head of the Ukrainian Council of Ministers on 16 January 1979.[5]
PresidentLeonid Kravchuk's appointment of Masol as Prime Minister of Ukraine on 16 June 1994[1] with his image of "an advocate of state-controlled economy" was seen as a surprise and a pre-election concession to the communist-dominated Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's parliament).[8] Masol was once again reinstated by President Leonid Kuchma.[1] Masol was against most of Kuchma's reform plans and openly so; he sometimes mobilized the Verkhovna Rada against Kuchma.[1] Masol resigned on 1 March 1995, but continued to attend meetings of the Verkhovna Rada.[1] Masol's two periods in this office saw the beginnings of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the establishment of a new political system in Ukraine.[9]
