Volodymyr V. Chepovyi

Volodymyr Vitaliyovych Chepovyi was born on May 19, 1967, in the village of Tsymbalivka, Starosyniavskyi district, Khmilnytskyi region. Volodymyr's childhood was spent in Cherkasy, where his family with two sons moved in 1968. His father worked as a lathe operator at a factory, and his mother was a nanny in a kindergarten. In 1974-1982, Volodymyr studied at Cherkasy Secondary School No. 2, and after finishing the 8th grade, he entered the Kyiv Suvorov Military School, which he graduated from in the summer of 1984. In 1984-1988, he studied at the Kyiv Higher General Military School, Faculty of Intelligence. He served in the 8th Special Purpose Brigade, which was stationed in Iziaslav, Khmilnytskyi region. In the winter of 1990, the brigade was operationally transferred to Vaziani, Georgia. After the officers and warrant officers of the brigade refused in writing to participate in the planned provocations and cleanups in Tbilisi, the brigade was returned to Ukraine, and many officers were dismissed. From May 1990, he left military service and, together with a group of former officers, became a co-founder of the Blits-Inform publishing house, which began publishing the newspapers Biznes, Dilovi novyny, Novyny, and the magazines Natali and Kapital. After a few years, the company built new printing plants Blits-Print, Blits-Pak, and Blits-Flex. In 2001, the company already had 4,500 employees, and the annual turnover was
100 million. In the fall of 2001, he was forced to leave the big business. Then he wrote his first book "Business - the Fairest Game." In the spring of 2002, Volodymyr and his partners launched a new project - the Karavan-Media publishing house, which began publishing the magazines ArkhIdeia and Karavan istorii-Ukraina. In the summer of 2004, Volodymyr launches a new media project for the business audience "Expert-Ukraina." In the fall, he actively participates in the Orange Revolution, deploying an information unit with colleagues at the Trade Union House. From February to the fall of 2005, he worked as the head of the State Secretary of Ukraine's service. The events of the early 2000s, including the Orange Revolution, were revealed in his book "I Woke Up Happy." He returned to the media business as a co-founder and president of the Media Invest Group holding company. He gave reports at conferences and forums, conducted lectures and master classes at universities and business clubs. The Revolution of Dignity and the war in eastern Ukraine forced Volodymyr to combine military knowledge with media: in the position of acting Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine in 2014, he was involved in the creation of the Information and Analytical Center of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine. From the fall of 2014 to June 2022, he held the position of editor-in-chief of the Biznes magazine and general director of the Blits-Inform publishing house. After the start of the Russian military invasion of Ukraine, he went to the front as a volunteer of the territorial defense. He went missing at the end of June 2022. On June 22, 2022, the head of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine, Serhii Tomilenko, announced on Facebook about the death of Volodymyr Chepovyi. However, Volodymyr's son, Ivan Chepovyi, stated the same day that his father was officially considered missing, not killed.