Lazarenko's time as prime minister and subsequent trials have established him as one of the most corrupt, authoritarian, and unpopular politicians in Ukrainian history.

Following his 1999 flight from Ukraine, Lazarenko fled to the United States, where he was subsequently tried for extortion, money laundering, and wire fraud, and sentenced.

Pavlo Lazarenko was born in the village of Karpivka (located near Kryvyi Rih) on 23 January 1953 into a family of peasant farmers.

On 28 May 1996, Kuchma confirmed Lazarenko as the Prime Minister of Ukraine within the powers stipulated by the existing "Constitutional Agreement".

On 10 July 1996, less than two weeks after adopting a new Constitution of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada approved the appointment of Lazarenko as prime minister.

On 16 July 1996, Lazarenko survived an attempt on his life when a bomb exploded near his blocked car en route from Kyiv to Boryspil airport.

[5][6][7] Following his departure from the office of prime minister, Lazarenko also allegedly ordered the assassination of Vadym Hetman, an independent People's Deputy who had been active in economic reform efforts.

At that time, he maintained a close business relationship with Yulia Tymoshenko, then the CEO of United Energy Systems of Ukraine, a monopoly that imported Russian natural gas.

[12][13] Lazarenko is reported to have abused his official authority as Prime Minister of Ukraine to extort nearly 50% of businessman Peter Kiritchenko's $60 million in profits.

Lazarenko then ordered him to assist in laundering the proceeds to accounts in Poland, Switzerland, Antigua, and eventually in the United States, where a shell company was used to conceal his property purchases.

[15] In a special investigative report conducted by Kelly Carr and Brian Grow, two Reuters journalists, it is stated that Lazarenko "was once ranked the eighth-most corrupt official in the world by watchdog group Transparency International" and that "Court records submitted in Lazarenko's criminal case and documents from a separate civil lawsuit, as well as interviews with lawyers familiar with the matter, indicate Lazarenko controls a shelf company incorporated in Cheyenne that owns an estimated $72 million in real estate in Ukraine through other companies".

He was reported by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to have been guilty of money laundering in the United States, and has routinely been on Transparency International's lists of most corrupt officials.

[17][18] By mid-1997, Lazarenko had fallen out of favour with Kuchma, who suspected him of making plans to run for president in the 1999 Ukrainian presidential election.

However, he was released on bail shortly afterwards, and fled Europe to the United States in 1999, fearing retribution from Kuchma after his fall from grace.

This case soon expanded to cover Lazarenko's various crimes, and he was eventually convicted of extortion, money laundering, and wire fraud in 2004, and sentenced to 9 years in federal prison on 25 August 2006.

[25] Following the end of his sentence, he applied for residency in the United States, citing the 2011 arrest of Yulia Tymoshenko, who was coincidentally a close ally of Lazarenko as prime minister.

[10][26] According to Lazarenko's defense lawyer Viktor Chevhuz, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services were to deal with this application by the end of 2013.

[25] In 2012, Prosecutor General of Ukraine Viktor Pshonka announced the involvement of Lazarenko, alongside Tymoshenko, in the murder of Yevhen Shcherban and Alexander Momot in 1996, and the assassination of banker Vadym Hetman.

[1] According to The Ukrainian Weekly; at the time of his 1998 arrest in Switzerland, Lazarenko's wife and children were living in a mansion worth US$7 million in Novato, near San Francisco.

Lazarenko is currently married to Oksana Tsykova, an attorney in Daniel Horowitz's Law Practice in the California East San Francisco Bay Area,[33] with whom he has 3 children.