Yevhen Kyrylovych Marchuk (; 28 January 1941 – 5 August 2021) was a Ukrainian politician, intelligence officer, and general who served as the fourth Prime Minister of Ukraine after its independence in 1991. During his career, Marchuk served in various other positions within the Ukrainian state apparatus, among them secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, Chief of the Security Service of Ukraine, a People's Deputy of Ukraine, and Defense Minister of Ukraine. Early life and career Yevhen Marchuk was born shortly before Operation Barbarossa, into a peasant family in Central Ukraine. In 1963, upon graduation from the Kirovohrad Pedagogical Institute, Marchuk was recruited by the KGB and steadily rose through the ranks of that organization. As an operative officer, Marchuk first served in Kirovohrad Oblast before later joining the Ukrainian SSR's KGB branch in Kyiv as an intelligence and secret service officer for a total of 31 years of service. Marchuk admitted to specializing in secret police functions. However, he claimed to have been a humane lawful agent, secretly protecting some Ukrainian Soviet dissidents from harsh persecution. Ukrainian intelligence career In the early 1990s, Marchuk was one of the first high-level KGB officers who appeared to be supportive of the then-recent Declaration of Independence of Ukraine, and was one of the founders of the Security Service of Ukraine, serving as its first chief from November 1991 to July 1994. At first, Marchuk was appointed as the Ukrainian SSR's Minister of National Security and Defence - a position which held no actual power, as local KGB units, militsiya, and the army remained subordinate to Moscow until 1991. The Soviet Union then collapsed, ending Marchuk's service to the KGB, and he was able to participate fully in the Ukrainian independent government. He headed the Secret Service of Ukraine until 1994. Political career After the 1994 Ukrainian parliamentary election, Marchuk became head of the liberal Social Market Choice faction, whose members included former President of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk. Prime Minister of Ukraine Marchuk was appointed acting Prime Minister of Ukraine on 1 March 1995, having previously held the position of the First Vice Premier Minister in the cabinet of Vitaliy Masol since 1 July 1994. He was later promoted to the position of the Prime Minister on 8 June 1995. He formed his cabinet, which was confirmed on 3 July 1995. After being elected to the Verkhovna Rada in December 1995,