Vladimir Ilyich Yashchenko or Volodymyr Yashchenko (12 January 1959 – 30 November 1999) was a Ukrainian member of the Soviet national team and former world record holder in the high jump (2.33 m, 2.34 m, and 2.35m. Yashchenko first broke the record at age 18 with a jump of 2.33m, at the USA-USSR junior dual meet in June 1977 at Richmond, Virginia. He won the 1978 European Championships high jump competition with a jump of 230 cm. On 12 March 1978, he achieved the highest mark using the straddle technique. In 1979, Yashchenko suffered a severe knee injury and his career was effectively over at age twenty; he died from cirrhosis in 1999 at age forty.