However, he claimed to have been a humane lawful agent, secretly protecting some Ukrainian Soviet dissidents from harsh persecution.

[3] At first, Marchuk was appointed as the Ukrainian SSR's Minister of National Security and Defence - a position which held no actual power, as local KGB units, militsiya, and the army remained subordinate to Moscow until 1991.

The Soviet Union then collapsed, ending Marchuk's service to the KGB, and he was able to participate fully in the Ukrainian independent government.

[4] After the 1994 Ukrainian parliamentary election, Marchuk became head of the liberal Social Market Choice faction, whose members included former President of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk.

[citation needed] When the SDPU(o) refused to back Marchuk in the 1999 Ukrainian presidential election, he left to create his own Social Democratic Union.

[12] In June 2015, he was appointed by President Poroshenko a Ukrainian special representative in one of the subgroups of the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine.