Party of Justice, which all of them were dissolved. However, according to Ukrainian historian Vasyl Yablonskyi, a large portion of SDPU members and majority of Ukrainian Party of Justice never agreed with such decision. The mentioned parties did not only became inactive, but even actively counteracted the newly formed SDPU. The social democrats of Buzduhan accused the leaders of new party in political fraud, and representatives of Ukrainian Party of Justice declared that Mykhailo Hrechka had exceeded his authority. Viktor Medvedchuk and Hryhoriy Surkis One of the most powerful blocs within the SDPU(o) consisted of lawyer Viktor Medvedchuk and businessman Hryhoriy Surkis. Medvedchuk had made a name for himself in the Soviet Union as the government-assigned lawyer of several dissidents, among them the poet Vasyl Stus, while Surkis was a football manager. Together, their bloc formed a pro-Russian base within the SDPU(o), which caused great concern among other members, causing them to petition former President Leonid Kravchuk to join the party to prevent a takeover. Medvedchuk and Surkis had their own bank as early as 1992, called the Ukrainian Credit Bank, and business holding named "Omega-XXI vek". Political and business opponents of the two claimed that the business holding was an elaborate pyramid scheme which, by 1995, owed to the public 28.2 trillion Ukrainian karbovanets. Another important business entity of the group was the Slavutych Industrial and Financial Concern, which, starting in 1991-92 was receiving credits from foreign banks for purchase of oil which was refining in Ukraine during next 4 to 5 years. In the mid-1990s, the offices of Slavutych were set on fire, and all accounting records were destroyed. Through Slavutych, in early 1990s, Medvedchuk and Surkis also established close relationships with then-President Kravchuk. According to Kravchuk, the president of Slavutych proposed an economic programme to recover from the economic crisis resulting from the Soviet Union's collapse, which had been received warmly by acting Prime Minister of Ukraine Yukhym Zvyahilskyi and was soon taken into development by the Ukrainian government. Following the 1994 Ukrainian presidential election, a special state commission to review the activities of Slavutych was formed, but yielded no results. The newly-elected Leonid Kuchma was at first critical of Medvedchuk and Surkis, but soon after elections was able to find common ground, awarding both of them the Order of Merit in 1996. Further developments In January 1996, the Ministry of Justice annulled the registration of the