Belarus's first prime minister; co-signed the Belovezh Accords and later testified the Russian delegation alone arrived with a plan
'Neither I, nor Shushkevich, nor Kravchuk, nor Fokin knew such a document would be prepared and signed': Kebich insisted only the Russian delegation arrived with a plan for the Belovezh Accords.
A mechanical engineer from the Belarusian Polytechnic Institute, he rose through Minsk factories into the Belarusian Communist Party apparatus and became Chairman of the BSSR Council of Ministers in 1990. In December 1991 he co-signed the Belovezh Accords alongside Shushkevich, formally dissolving the USSR; he later testified that the Russian delegation alone arrived with a prepared plan while the Belarusian and Ukrainian sides did not know such a document would be drafted, revealing the tension between spontaneity and premeditation at the meeting. He lost the 1994 presidential election overwhelmingly to Alexander Lukashenko and thereafter served as a parliamentary deputy supporting Lukashenko's pro-Russian and constitutional-revision agenda.
Career Timeline
- 1958Graduated, Engineering Faculty, Belarusian Polytechnic Institute
- 1958–1973Engineer to deputy chief engineer, Minsk Automatic Lines Plant
- 1973–1980Chief engineer, director, then general director, Minsk Kirov Machine-Tool Plant
- 1980–1985Second Secretary, Minsk City Committee; department head, CC CPB; Second Secretary, Minsk Oblast Committee
- 1985–1990Deputy Chairman, BSSR Council of Ministers and Chairman, Gosplan BSSR
- 1990–1994Chairman, BSSR Council of Ministers / Prime Minister of Belarus
- 1996–2004Deputy, House of Representatives of Belarus