Viktor Yanukovych

Who Is Viktor Yanukovych?

Viktor Yanukovych is a well-known politician. He is famous for being the president of Ukraine, which is a big job. He is also known for working in other important roles in Ukraine.

Early Life and Background

Viktor Yanukovych was born on July 9, 1950.

Career and Claim to Fame

Viktor Yanukovych is a politician who had many important jobs. He was the president of Ukraine from 2010 to 2014. He also worked as the prime minister of Ukraine and was a member of the Verkhovna Rada, which is like a parliament. You can learn more about him on his official website.

His website has lots of information about his life and work. It is a great place to learn more about this interesting person.

Birthday, Age and Zodiac

Viktor Yanukovych was born on July 9, 1950. He is 76 years old. His zodiac sign is Cancer. People who are Cancer are often very caring and loyal.

Fun Facts and Legacy

Viktor Yanukovych is a famous politician who was born on July 9, 1950. He is 76 years old and a Cancer. He had many important jobs in Ukraine, including being the president. You can learn more about him on his website.

He is a well-known person who has done many interesting things in his life. Viktor Yanukovych is still living today.

We hope you liked learning about Viktor Yanukovych. He is an interesting person with a long and exciting career in politics.

Viktor Yanukovych - Quick Facts

Profile Overview of Viktor Yanukovych

Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych (born 9 July 1950) is a 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.

This profile of Viktor Yanukovych covers Early Life and Family Background, Criminal convictions, Head of Donetsk Oblast Administration (1997–2002), Prime Minister (2002–2004) and 2004 presidential campaign.

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. But 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. But his years in power saw what analysts described as democratic backsliding, 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. Some of his own party voted for his removal.

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 Family Background of Viktor Yanukovych

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.

Yanukovych is of Russian, Polish and Belarusian descent. Yanukovych is a surname of Belarusian origin, Yanuk being a derivative of the Catholic name Yan ("John"). His mother was a Russian nurse, and his father, Fyodor Yanukovych, was a Polish-Belarusian locomotive-driver, originally from Yanuki 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. But 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. But 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 a niece of Yenakiieve city judge Oleksandr Sazhyn.

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. 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 of Viktor Yanukovych

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". The press-service of the Ukrainian Cabinet asserted that Yanukovych suffered for the attempt to defend a girl from hooligans.

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). 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.

Source: adapted from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Yanukovych), text available under CC BY-SA 4.0.