Andrii Bohdanovych Deshchytsia (Ukrainian: Андрій Богданович Дещиця; born 22 September 1965) is a Ukrainian diplomat and politician.
From February to June 2014 Deshchytsia was Acting Foreign minister of Ukraine.
Deshchytsia was from October 2014 to June 2022 Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to Republic of Poland.
Andrii Deshchytsia was born on 22 September 1965 in Spasiv, near Pervyatychi, Lviv Oblast. His father, Bohdan Deshchytsia, worked as a postmaster in Sokal, and in the 1990s held the first rallies for Ukraine here. His mother worked as a paramedic and nurse.
In 1989, he graduated from Ivan Franko Lviv National University.
Then, in 1995, he graduated with a master's degree from the Department of History of the University of Alberta (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada).
Deshchytsia became a Candidate of Political Science after the successful defense of his master's thesis "The Rise of Multi-Party Systems in Poland and Ukraine", written under the supervision of Professor John-Paul Himka.
He is fluent in Ukrainian, English, Russian, and Polish.
From 1996 to 1999, Andrii Deshchytsia served as press Secretary, First Secretary of the Embassy of Ukraine to the Republic of Poland.
In 1999–2001, he was a Senior Coordinator of PAUCI (Polish-American-Ukrainian Cooperation Initiative).
From 2001 to 2004, he took a position of a counselor of the Embassy of Ukraine to the Republic of Finland and then as Counselor and Minister-Counselor of the Embassy of Ukraine to the Republic of Poland until 2006.
In 2006–2007, Deshchytsia was Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.
From 2008 to 2012, he served as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to the Republic of Finland and Iceland, while living in Finland.
From 2012 to February 2014, Andrii Deshchytsia was Ambassador-at-Large. During that time, from January–December 2013, he was Special Representative of OSCE Chairperson-in-Office for Conflict Resolution.
On 27 February 2014 he was appointed Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.
UN Resolution on Territorial integrity of Ukraine
On 27 March 2014, at the UN General Assembly, Deshchytsia presented the resolution on "Territorial integrity of Ukraine", which was supported by 100 United Nations member states, affirming the United Nations commitment to recognize Crimea within Ukraine's international borders and to condemn Crimea's annexation by Russia as illegal.
On 17 April 2014, Deshchytsia negotiated with John Kerry, Catherine Ashton, and Sergei Lavrov at a quadrilateral meeting in Geneva in an attempt to find a diplomatic solution to the war and humanitarian crisis caused by the Russian aggression in Ukraine. The resulting Geneva Statement on Ukraine laid the ground for de-escalating the crisis. However, Russia has repeatedly breached its commitments under the Geneva agreement, according to official statements of the leaders of the EU and the United States. One week after the joint Geneva Statement, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry accused Russia of failing to adhere to Geneva commitments by orchestrating armed resistance in eastern Ukraine. U.S. President Barack Obama stated that Vladimir Putin has 'not lifted a finger to ease tensions. President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy acknowledged that Russia has not lived up to its Geneva commitments.