Andriy Vasylyovych Taran (4 March 1955-) was Defense Minister of Ukraine from 4 March 2020 to 3 November 2021, succeeding Andriy Zahorodniuk and preceding Oleksii Reznikov.
Biography[]
Andriy Vasylyovych Taran was born in Frankfurt an der Oder, East Germany in 1955, the son of a Soviet Army soldier serving in the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany. He served in the Soviet Army and Ukrainian Army from 1972 to 2016 and worked for the Defense Ministry of Ukraine following the Dissolution of the Soviet Union; he retired in 2016 with the rank of Lieutenant-General. In 2019, he ran for the Verkhovna Rada as a candidate of the conservative Strength and Honor party, and he served as Defense Minister from March 2020 to November 2021 before being fired amid the 2021-2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis.