Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych (born 9 July 1950) is a Ukrainian former politician who served as the fourth president of Ukraine from 2010 to 2014. He also served as the prime minister of Ukraine several times between 2002 and 2007 and was a member of the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) from 2006 to 2010. Yanukovych was removed from the presidency during the 2014 Revolution of Dignity, which followed months of protests against him. Since then, he has lived in exile in Russia.
Yanukovych was a member of the pro-Russian Party of Regions. Before entering national politics, Yanukovych was the governor of his native Donetsk Oblast from 1997 to 2002. He was simultaneously the chairman of the oblast's legislature from 1999 to 2001. He first ran for president in the 2004 election, where he was declared the winner against Viktor Yushchenko. However, allegations of electoral fraud and voter intimidation caused widespread protests, in what became known as the Orange Revolution. The Ukrainian Supreme Court nullified the election and ordered a rerun, which Yanukovych lost to Yushchenko. Yanukovych ran for president again in 2010, this time beating Yulia Tymoshenko in an election deemed free and fair by international observers.
Yanukovych stood for economic modernisation, greater economic ties with the EU, and military non-alignment. However, his years in power saw what analysts described as democratic backsliding,Ukraine election 'reversed democracy', OSCE says, BBC News (29 October 2012) which included the jailing of Tymoshenko, a decline in press freedom and an increase in cronyism and corruption. In November 2013, Yanukovych suddenly withdrew from signing an association agreement with the EU, amidst economic pressure from Russia. Ukraine's parliament had overwhelmingly approved finalizing the agreement. This sparked massive protests against him, known as the Euromaidan. The unrest peaked in February 2014, when almost 100 protesters were killed by government forces. An agreement was signed by Yanukovych and the opposition on 21 February 2014, but he secretly fled the capital that evening. The next day, Ukraine's parliament voted to remove him and schedule early elections on the grounds that he had withdrawn from his constitutional duties."Ukraine: Speaker Oleksandr Turchynov named interim president", BBC News (23 February 2014)"Ukraine protests timeline", BBC News (23 February 2014) Some of his own party voted for his removal.Parliamentary vote on the draft resolution on the withdrawal of President of Ukraine to fulfill constitutional powers (number 4193). . Verkhovna Rada.Ukraine's Tymoshenko Slams Rival, No Comment On Election Result, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (11 February 2010): "International observers and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have called the election transparent and honest."
Ukraine's new government issued an arrest warrant for Yanukovych, accusing him of responsibility for the killing of protesters. He fled to Russia, claiming to still be the head of state. In 2019, he was sentenced in absentia to a thirteen-year prison term for high treason by a Ukrainian court. In polling conducted since he left office, Yanukovych has ranked as one of the worst presidents in Ukrainian history. Yanukovych has also given his name to a collective term for blunders made by Ukrainian politicians: Yanukisms.
Early life and career Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych was born on 9 July 1950 in Zhukovka, a village near Yenakiieve in the Donetsk Oblast of the Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union. Of his childhood, he has written: "My childhood was difficult and hungry. I grew up without my mother, who died when I was two. I went around bare-footed on the streets. I had to fight for myself every day."Ukraine's 'Orange villain' seeks last laugh", U.K. Telegraph online (12 January 2010)
Yanukovych is of Russian, PolishWojciechowski, M. Janukowycz zmienia konstytucję Ukrainy, przedłuża sobie kadencję i podkreśla polskie korzenie. "Gazeta Wyborcza". Kyiv, 02/2011. and Belarusian descent. Yanukovych is a surname of Belarusian origin, Бiрыла, М. В. (1966). Беларуская антрапанiмiя. Уласныя iмёны, iмёны-мянушкi, iмёны па бацьку, прозвiшчы. Мінск: Навука i тэхнiка. с. 85–86. YanukUnbegaun, B. O. (1972). Russian Surnames. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 529 p. Усціновіч, Г. К. (1975). Антрапанімія Гродзеншчыны і Брэстчыны (XIV—XVIII стст.). Мінск: Навука і тэхніка. с. 89–106. being a derivative of the Catholic name Yan ("John"). Ластоўскі, В. (1924). Падручны Расійска-Крыўскі (Беларускі) слоўнік. Коўна. Шур, В. В. (2010). Уласнае імя ў мастацкім тэксце. с. 93. His mother was a Russian nurse, and his father, Fyodor Yanukovych, was a Polish-Belarusian locomotive-driver, originally from in the Dokshytsy Raion of the Vitebsk Region which is in present-day Belarus. On various occasions, Yanukovych's family has been dogged by accusations that Fyodor Yanukovych was a member of the Schutzmannschaft during World War II, in particular claims by members of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, which included documents from the NKVD supposedly revealing his involvement with the Schutzmannschaft. However, it has also been stated by residents of Yanuki that Yanukovych's family left for the Donbas before 1917, and that the collaborator Fyodor Yanukovych was an unrelated individual. Others, particularly members of the Party of Regions, have claimed that the documents were a falsehood with the intention of disparaging Yanukovych ahead of elections.
By the time he was a teenager, Yanukovych's father had remarried. However, Viktor left home due to conflicts with his stepmother and was brought up by his Polish paternal grandmother, who was originally from Warsaw. His grandfather and great-grandparents were Lithuanian-Poles. Yanukovych has half-sisters from his father's remarriage but has no contact with them.
In 1971, Yanukovych married Lyudmyla Nastenko"First ladies of Ukraine" , Information Telegraph Agency of Russia (6 June 2014) a niece of Yenakiieve city judge Oleksandr Sazhyn.Kazmirenko, Y. From where started Yanukovych. Gazeta po-kievsky. 25 February 2010
In July 1974, Yanukovych enrolled at the Donetsk Polytechnic Institute. In 1976, as a second-year student, he was promoted to director of a trucking division within the Ordzhonikidzeugol coal-mining company."Public image of Yanukovych". Ukrayinska Pravda. His appointment as the chief manager marked the start of his managerial career as a regional transport executive. He held various positions in transport companies in Yenakiieve and Donetsk until 1996.
Criminal convictions On 15 December 1967, at the age of 17, Yanukovych was sentenced to three years imprisonment for participating in a robbery and assault. On 8 June 1970 he was convicted for a second time on charges of assault. He was sentenced to two years of imprisonment and did not appeal the verdict. Decades later, Yanukovych characterised his arrests and imprisonment as "mistakes of youth".
On 27 December 1978 both of Yanukovych's convictions were overturned by the Donetsk Regional Court at the initiative of judge Vitaliy Boiko, after an appeal by cosmonaut Georgy Beregovoy, then deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. In 2005 deputy head prosecutor of Donetsk Oblast initiated a proceeding concerning possible falsification of documents confirming the overturn of Yanukovych's convictions, however in 2006 it was abandoned. According to a local judge, the originals of documents concerning Yanukovych's convictions went missing from the Yenakiieve court between 1989 and 2000 due to "insufficient security measures".
In October 2004, Ukrainian deputy Hryhoriy Omelchenko accused Yanukovych of having been a member of "a group of individuals who brutally beat and raped a woman, but bought off the victim and the criminal case was closed". "Мог ли Янукович сесть в третий раз", Газета.ua (12 November 2009) The press-service of the Ukrainian Cabinet asserted that Yanukovych suffered for the attempt to defend a girl from hooligans.
Political career: 1996–2010 Head of Donetsk Oblast Administration (1997–2002) Yanukovych's political career began when he was appointed as a Vice-Head of Donetsk Oblast Administration in August 1996. On 14 May 1997, he was appointed as the Head of the Administration (i.e. Governor)."Profile: Viktor Yanukovych", BBC News (regularly updated) Oligarch Rinat Akhmetov was widely considered to have played a key role in Yanukovych's appointment as governor. During his tenure in Donetsk, local business groups, dominated by the Industrial Union of Donbas, managed to concentrate under their control the entire production chain of the region's coal and metal industries, as well as energy production. In June 1998 Yanukovych was elected member of Donetsk Oblast Council.
In 2001 Yanukovych became a member of the newly created Party of Regions, which was considered to represent the interests of the "Donetsk Clan". As governor, he was seen by journalists as a protegée of the party's head Mykola Azarov, who also served as head of the State Tax Administration of Ukraine. Yanukovych was claimed to have played a key role in the privatization of Alchevsk Metallurgical Complex, during which representatives of "Donetsk Clan" and "Dnipropetrovsk Mafia" received equal shares of the enterprise. During that time he criticized the centralization of Ukrainian politics and called on authorities in Kyiv to define the rights and obligations of separate regions before the government. Yanukovych publicly supported For United Ukraine! during the 2002 Ukrainian parliamentary election. As a result of the vote, Donetsk Oblast became the only region of Ukraine, where the pro-government party won the election amid claims of numerous violations of electoral process.
Prime Minister (2002–2004)
President Leonid Kuchma appointed Yanukovych to the post of prime minister following Anatoliy Kinakh's resignation."The countries of the former Soviet Union at the turn of the twenty-first century: the Baltic and European states in transition" (page 556) by Ian Jeffries, , 9780415252300 (published in 2004) Yanukovych began his term as prime minister on 21 November 2002 following a 234-vote confirmation in the Ukrainian parliament, eight more than needed."How Ukraine Became a Market Economy and Democracy" by Anders Åslund, Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2009, (page 153) According to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Yanukovych's appointment was part of Kuchma's plan to establish a counterweight to the powerful head of his administration, Viktor Medvedchuk. Opposition politicians considered Yanukovych's government to be the result of a compromise between the Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk and Kyiv oligarchic clans. On his post Yanukovych supported the expansion of authority of the executive branch.
During the first year of Yanukovych's premiership, Ukraine's population suffered from rising bread and grain prices, which were blamed on falsified data about the previous year's harvest and led to what was described as the country's worst food crisis since independence 12 years earlier. In order to combat inflation, the cabinet allocated 400 million hryvnias to be spent on grain imports. Yanukovych himself called the rise of prices "artificial" and demand from regional governors to take measures in order to limit it. In 2003 his government established a two-year moratorium on taxation benefits. Some experts blamed Yanukovych's cabinet of reversing market reforms and returning to the practices of market intervention, subsidies and price controls.