Dmytro Salamatin

Dmytro Salamatin is a Ukrainian politician who is a former Minister of Defence of Ukraine.

Salamatin was born in Karaganda (now Kazakhstan; then Soviet Union) on 26 April 1965. He graduated from the Karaganda Polytechnic Institute in 1989 in "underground mining of mineral deposits" ; in 1991 he finished a course in "staff engineer and economist" at the Moscow Mining Institute. After working in Russia from 1991 till 1999 (until 1999 Salamatin had Russian citizenship ). Salamatin moved to Ukraine in April 1999. During the 2006 and 2007 parliamentary elections, he was elected as a deputy to the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian Parliament) for Party of Regions. In June 2010, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych appointed Salamatin as director general of Ukraine's state arms exporter Ukrspetsexport. Total revenue from the activity of GK "Ukrspetsexport" and its subsidiaries for 2011 was a record for the first time exceeded one billion dollars.

On 4 January 2011 Salamatin was appointed director general of the newly created Ukroboronprom state concern. On 8 February 2012 Salamatin was appointed Minister of Defence of Ukraine.

According to Ukrayinska Pravda Salamatin is the son-in-law of former First Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Oleg Soskovets.

Controversy
Our Ukraine–People's Self-Defense Bloc People's Deputy of Ukraine Volodymyr Stretovych claimed in April 2012 that Salamatin had received Ukrainian citizenship in 2005 and thus was illegally elected into parliament in 2007. According to Central Election Commission of Ukraine member Mykhaylo Okhendovsky Salamatin was legally electable in 2007, because he had been living in Ukraine the prior 5 years.

The article 76 of the Constitution of Ukraine states that: The People's Deputy of Ukraine may be elected a citizen of Ukraine, which on the day of the elections reached twenty one years of age, has the right to vote and resides in Ukraine during the last five years.