Viktoria Vahnier

Viktoria Oleksandrivna Vahnier was born on 21 May 1981 in the village of Qalbatau [kk] (then called Georgiyevka), in what was then the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union. She is a graduate of the Kherson Basic Medical College as an obstetric paramedic, and from the National University of Kharkiv with a specialisation in medical business. She also specialised in obstetrics and gynaecology after completing an internship at the O. S. Luchanskyi City Clinical Hospital. She is currently studying at the Kherson National Technical University's public management and administration faculty.^[1]

From 2016, Vahnier was head doctor of the Oblast Rehabilitation Hospital of the Kherson Oblast Council. Prior to this, she headed the Oberih company, helping Ukrainian veterans of the war in Donbas, and she is additionally co-founder of the Ukrainian Life charitable foundation. She is the widow of Vladyslav Kovalov, a doctor who was killed in Donetsk Oblast.^[1]

In the 2015 Ukrainian local elections, Vahnier was an unsuccessful candidate in elections to the Kherson Oblast Council as a candidate from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc.^[1]

In the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election, Vahnier ran for the office of People's Deputy of Ukraine from Ukraine's 183rd electoral district as the candidate of Servant of the People. At the time of the election, she was an independent.^[2] This time, she was successfully elected, winning with 39.36% of the vote. In second place was former People's Deputy Mykhailo Opanashchenko [uk] of the pro-Russian Opposition Platform — For Life party with 14.56%. In fourth place was incumbent People's Deputy Yuriy Odarchenko of Batkivshchyna, who won only 7.31% of the vote.^[3]

In the Verkhovna Rada (parliament of Ukraine), Vahnier joined the Servant of the People faction and the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Health, Healthcare, and Health Insurance. She is also a member of the inter-factional associations South Ukraine and the Parliamentary Platform to Fight Tuberculosis.^[2]