Viktor Mykolayovych Shokin is a former Prosecutor General of Ukraine. Having previously worked as an investigator for the Prosecutor General Office, he served as Prosecutor General for a year between 2015 and 2016.
Amid domestic and international pressure, he was removed from office by the Ukrainian Parliament on March 2016, in a move welcomed by the European Union, the United States, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Shokon's removal played a central part in the Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory as it was claimed that US President Joe Biden sought to thwart an investigation into a company tied to his son, Hunter Biden, but Obama administration officials, European diplomats and anti-corruption advocates in Ukraine say it was for Shokin failure to pursue Ukrainian politicians for corruption, and that they intervened before Biden did.
Shokin was born 4 November 1952 in Kyiv. After graduating from the Kharkiv Law Institute (today Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University) in 1980, Shokin worked for the Prosecutor General Office as investigator until 2001. In an interview with Ukrayinska Pravda he stated that he was forced to retire in 2001 after refusing to take on the case against Yulia Tymoshenko.
