Leonid Kuchma

Leonid Danylovych Kuchma (born 9 August 1938) is a Ukrainian politician who was the second President of independent Ukraine from 19 July 1994 to 23 January 2005. Kuchma's presidency was surrounded by numerous corruption scandals and the lessening of media freedoms. After a successful career in the machine-building industry of the Soviet Union, Kuchma began his political career in 1990, when he was elected to the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian parliament); he was re-elected in 1994. He served as Ukrainian Prime Minister between October 1992 and September 1993. Kuchma took office after winning the 1994 presidential election against his rival, the incumbent Leonid Kravchuk. Kuchma won re-election for an additional five-year term in 1999. Corruption accelerated after Kuchma's election in 1994, but in 2000–2001, his power began to weaken in the face of exposures in the media. The Ukrainian economy continued to decline until 1999, whereas growth was recorded since 2000, bringing relative prosperity to some segments of urban residents. During his presidency, Ukrainian-Russian ties began to improve. Between 2014 and 2020, Kuchma was a special presidential representative of Ukraine at the semi-official peace talks regarding the ongoing War in Donbas.

Leonid Danylovych Kuchma

Leonid Kuchma was born in the village of Chaikine in rural Chernihiv Oblast. His father Danylo Prokopovych Kuchma (1901–1942) was wounded in World War II and eventually died of his wounds in the field hospital #756 (near the village of Novoselytsia) when Leonid was four. His mother Paraska Trokhymivna Kuchma worked on a kolkhoz. Kuchma attended the Kostobobriv general education school in the neighboring Semenivka Raion. Later he enrolled in Dnipropetrovsk National University and graduated in 1960 with a degree in mechanical engineering (majoring in aerospace engineering). In 1960 joined the Communist Party of Soviet Union. Kuchma is a candidate of technical sciences. In 1967, Kuchma married Lyudmyla Talalayeva.

After graduation, Kuchma worked in the field of aerospace engineering for the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau in Dnipropetrovsk. At 28 he became a testing director for the Bureau deployed at the Baikonur cosmodrome. Some political observers suggested that Kuchma's early career was significantly boosted by his marriage to Lyudmila Talalayeva, an adopted daughter of Gennadiy Tumanov, the Yuzhmash chief engineering officer and later the Soviet Minister of Medium Machine Building. At 38 Kuchma became the Communist party chief at Yuzhny Machine-building Plant and a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine. He was a delegate of the 27th and 28th Congresses of the Communist Party of Soviet Union. By the end of the 1980s, Kuchma openly criticized the Communist Party. In 1982 Kuchma was appointed the first deputy of general design engineer at Yuzhmash, and from 1986 to 1992, he held the position of the company's general director. From 1990 to 1992, Kuchma was a member of the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's parliament). In 1992 he was appointed as Prime Minister of Ukraine. He resigned a year later, complaining of "slow pace of reform". He was re-elected into parliament in 1994.

Kuchma resigned from the position of Prime Minister of Ukraine in September 1993 to run for the presidency in 1994 on a platform to boost the economy by restoring economic relations with Russia and faster pro-market reforms. Kuchma won a clear victory against the incumbent President Leonid Kravchuk, receiving strong support from the industrial areas in the east and south. His worst results were in the west of the country. Kuchma was re-elected in 1999 to his second term. This time the areas that gave him strongest support last time voted for his opponents, and the areas which voted against him last time came to his support. During Kuchma's presidency, he closed opposition papers and several journalists died in mysterious circumstances. According to historian Serhy Yekelchyk President Kuchma's administration "employed electoral fraud freely" during the 2000 constitutional referendum and 1999 presidential elections.

Results in the Second round of the 1994 presidential election: Blue – Leonid Kuchma, orange – Leonid Kravchuk

Results in the Second round of the 1999 presidential election: Blue – Leonid Kuchma, red – Petro Symonenko