Place of Birth. Education. Originally from the village of Loshkivtsi, Dunaevets district, Khmelnytsky region. He graduated from the Kamianets-Podilskyi Agricultural Institute (graduating from the university in 1977 with a degree in mechanical engineering). Later he graduated from the Higher Party School under the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine with a degree in political science.
Career. In 1977-1981. Vinsky worked as a diagnostic engineer in the Kamyanets-Podilsky district association of Selkhoztehnika, chief engineer of the Shchors state farm of the Soyuzsortnasinnyaovoch production department of the Dubna region in the Rivne region, and as a designer and senior engineer in the Kamianets-Podilsky branch of the Kiev special design bureau Ukrsortnasinnyaovoch. From 1981 to 1991 – in the Komsomol and party work. In 1991, he became a member of the newly created Socialist Party of Ukraine, headed the Khmelnitsky regional party organization. At the same time (until 1994) he headed the technical center “Belarus” of the Khmelnytsky enterprise Agropromtechnika.
In 1994, he first became a People’s Deputy of Ukraine. Since then, he has been elected to parliament four more times. On the party line, he “rose” to the post of head of the political council of the SPU and the unofficial title of “gray eminence” of the party.
In the summer of 2006, after the leadership of the Socialist Party led by Oleksandr Moroz changed its mind about entering into a coalition with Our Ukraine and BYuT and entered into an alliance with the Party of Regions and the Communist Party of Ukraine, Vinsky, who in 2004 actively supported Viktor Yushchenko in the second round of the presidential elections and who took an active part in the “orange revolution”, defiantly left the socialist faction. In September, the SPU political council expelled him from the party. According to leader Moroz, “for deliberately violating the party’s charter, which prohibits party members from holding discussions in the media that do not belong to the party.” After that, various accusations rained down on Vinsky from the lips of former party members. For example, because of him as the head of the SPU election campaign in the 2006 elections, the party won few votes (in parliament it received 33 mandates out of 450). The “rebel” himself categorically stated that Moroz, who had betrayed the interests of the voters, had no political future, that in the coalition they demanded from Moroz “not to show off and build his guys”, and “guys”, for whom personal loyalty to the party boss is more important, and not the party’s ideological platform, “build up” ready.
After leaving the SPU faction, Vinsky was among the non-factional deputies for some time. Later, he was offered the post of deputy leader of the parliamentary opposition, which was the leader of the BYuT Yulia Tymoshenko, membership in the “Tymoshenko” Batkivshchyna party and the position of deputy chairman in it.
On December 18, 2007, he was appointed Minister of Transport and Communications in the Tymoshenko government. He replaced the former party member Nikolai Rudkovsky, who, shortly before his resignation, was at the center of a scandal over allegations of abuse of office. In June 2009, the Prime Minister accused Vinsky of using administrative resources to campaign for the presidential election, after which he wrote a letter of resignation and announced his withdrawal from the Batkivshchyna party. On June 23, 2009, Vinsky was dismissed from the post of Minister of Transport and Communications by the decision of the Verkhovna Rada.
In the parliamentary elections in the fall of 2012, he ran as a self-nominated candidate in the single-mandate constituency No. 192 in the Khmelnytsky region, but lost to Oleksandr Gerega.
Views and assessments. Vinsky until the last remained a zealous opponent of the parliamentary coalition of the 2006 model and advocated an alliance of democratic forces. With great enthusiasm, he supported the decision of President Yushchenko to dissolve the Verkhovna Rada of the 5th convocation ahead of schedule and announce early parliamentary elections.
As head of the Ministry of Transport, he positioned himself as an opponent of the privatization of Ukrzaliznytsia and was preparing for fundamental changes in the industry entrusted to him in connection with the holding of Euro 2012 in Ukraine.
In mid-March 2008, thanks to the observation of political opponents and journalists of Ukrainskaya Pravda, Vinsky found himself in a delicate situation. As it turned out, soon after taking office as head of the Ministry of Transport and Communications, he moved to a luxurious Mercedes S-class worth UAH 1 million 167 thousand, bought at public expense by one of the enterprises subordinate to the ministry. And this was not long before the head of the new government publicly announced that members of her Cabinet would refrain from the luxurious life practiced by their predecessors.
The situation turned out to be so “convex” that it even required a public explanation by the prime minister. Tymoshenko called her minister “a very modest person who will never allow himself any abuse.” And she advised the “sharks of the pen” to pay attention to the London mansion for 80 million pounds, recently bought by the daughter of ex-president Leonid Kuchma. At the same time, she joked: “We will do everything to ensure that Joseph Vinsky rides on a railcar. He is also the Minister of Transport.” As they say, in every joke there is a joke…
By the way, a similar scandal related to the purchase of an expensive Mercedes to another “orange” politician – Oleksiy Ivchenko – cost the post of head of Naftogaz of Ukraine. Perhaps, remembering that story, Vinsky, the very next day after the publication in the UP, announced that he was refusing official transport and would use his personal one.
Family, hobby. The politician is married, raised a son and a daughter. Hobbies include hunting and gardening.
01/07/2022