Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has signed a decree appointing People's Front parliamentary faction leader Oleksandr Turchynov to the post of secretary of the country's National Security and Defense Council (NSDC).

Turchynov, 50, is a Ukrainian political figure, who served as Verkhovna Rada speaker and simultaneously held the posts of the country's acting president and commander-in-chief from February 23 to June 7, 2014.

Turchynov headed Ukraine's Security Service from February to September 2005, held the post of first deputy secretary of the NSDC from May to November 2007, and served as the country's first deputy prime minister from December 2007 until March 2010.

Turchynov was considered the right-hand man of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, but, ahead of the October 26 parliamentary elections, he quit Tymoshenko's Batkivschyna Party and joined the People's Front.