Denis Pushilin
Denis Vladimirovich Pushilin (Russian: Дени́с Влади́мирович Пуши́лин, pronounced [dʲɪˈnʲis vlɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvʲɪtɕ pʊˈʂɨlʲɪn]; Ukrainian: Денис Володимирович Пушилін; born on May 9, 1981) is a politician who was the self-declared Chairman of the People's Soviet (Speaker of parliament) of the Donetsk People's Republic, and therefore, under the draft Constitution adopted on May 15, the self-declared republic's head of state.
Biography
Ukrainian media claimed that Pushilin's highest stage of formal education is secondary education. According to his (November 2013) autobiography at the Central Election Commission of Ukraine, in May 2014 Russia's ITAR-TASS (news agency) reported Pushilin had graduated from the Donbass Academy of Civil Engineering and Architecture.
Prior to his political activism, Pushilin worked for a recent successor of the 1990s Russian Ponzi scheme company MMM, which cost its customers millions of dollars before it was disbanded in 1994. Pushilin never denied involvement in such schemes and affirmed that "pyramid schemes were legal in Russia at the time".