Victor Fyodorovich Yanukovych - politician and statesman, prime minister during the presidential terms of Viktor Yushchenko and Leonid Kuchma, the fourth president of Ukraine. His stay in power led to a coup d'état that radically changed the course of the country's history.

Yanukovych was born on July 9, 1950 in the village of Zhukovka, Enakievsky district, Donetsk (Stalin) region, in the family of a steam locomotive driver Fyodor Vladimirovich Yanukovych and a nurse Olga Semyonovna Leonova. Indicating the pedigree, he subsequently mentioned the Polish-Lithuanian roots on the paternal side.

Both parents were not local: the father moved from the Vitebsk region, and the mother was the daughter of a dispossessed peasant from the Oryol (Kursk) volost. In 1952, Olga Semyonovna died suddenly, and the grandmother Kastusya Ivanovna Yanukovych, who survived deportation to Germany during the Great Patriotic War, took up the upbringing of the boy.

Yanukovych spent his childhood in the city of Yenakiyevo, studied at school number 34. At the age of 17, he was convicted in a robbery case as part of an organized group for 3 years. After six months in the Kremenchug colony, Viktor was released for good behavior.

At the age of 19, he entered the Enakievsky Metallurgical Plant as a gasman. A year later, he was again on trial in connection with a fight. Viktor Yanukovych later wrote about the mistakes of his youth in a brief biography, which was required of him before his first appointment to the post of prime minister. In 1978, both convictions were dropped by the regional court of the Donetsk region.

In the 70s, Yanukovych quickly began to rise up the career ladder. He changed his specialty as a car mechanic, mechanic, graduated from a local mining college. Until 1980, he was in the ranks of the Komsomol. For 20 years, he held the position of General Director of the Production Association Donbasstransremont, Production Association Uglepromtrans, and then the regional enterprise Donetskavtotrans. In the mid-70s he entered the DPI at the correspondence department. Until 1991, he was a member of the CPSU.



In 1996, Yanukovych began his political career, first as a deputy chairman and then as chairman of the Donetsk regional administration. He held the post until 2002. In 2000, he became the head of the department of innovation management at the DonGUU, received the titles of professor and doctor of economic sciences. In 2001 he graduated from the Ukrainian Academy of Foreign Trade as a specialist in international law.

In 2001, on behalf of the incumbent President Leonid Kuchma, he paid a political visit to Moscow, in 2002 he was elected to the post of prime minister, beating candidates Sergei Tigipko, Georgy Kirpa and Oleg Dubina. Since 2003, he headed the Party of Regions, from which a year later he was nominated as a presidential candidate. Having won the second round of elections with a 2.6% advantage over Viktor Yushchenko, he was accused of falsifying data.



As a result of public unrest, which was called the "Orange Revolution", re-elections were held. The votes were distributed in favor of Yushchenko, and Yanukovych had to resign as prime minister. In 2006, he was elected to the Verkhovna Rada from the Party of Regions and became the chairman of the faction. Six months later, he again took the post of prime minister, where he remained until the end of 2007, after which he moved to the Verkhovna Rada.

In 2010, Viktor Fedorovich ran for president for the second time. This time his opponents were Viktor Yushchenko, Yulia Timoshenko, Sergei Tigipko, Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Petr Simonenko. Yanukovych got into the second round together with Tymoshenko, whom he bypassed, gaining 48.95% of the vote. On February 25, he officially took office as the President of Ukraine, as well as the head of the National Security and Defense Council and the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Mykola Azarov was appointed head of the Party of Regions.

During his reign, Viktor Yanukovych reduced the apparatus of the presidential administration by 20%, created an anti-corruption committee, disbanded 70% of the ministerial apparatus, carried out a number of reforms, defended the rights to the Russian language under the European Charter of Regional Languages, simplified documentary support for road transport and abolished conscription.

The first year of Yanukovych's rule began a rapid rise in prices and tariffs for goods and services for citizens, while the number of billionaires increased. The Prosecutor General's Office opened cases against former President Leonid Kuchma, opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, Economy Minister Bogdan Danylyshyn, and. O. Defense Minister Valery Ivashchenko and others.

In foreign policy, Yanukovych declared an alliance with Russia and Belarus a priority for Ukraine, while he called integration into the European Union a strategic goal, but categorically refused to cooperate with NATO. He recognized the Holodomor as a common tragedy for all the peoples of the former USSR. In 2013, Viktor Fedorovich refused to sign an agreement with the European Union, thereby provoking a political crisis in the country.

Many political observers in Ukraine suspected that Yanukovych held a consultation with Vladimir Putin before the crucial moment. But there is no evidence for this. In November, a confrontation began, called the Euromaidan, which resulted in a radical anti-government movement.



On February 21, 2014, bloody clashes began on Maidan Nezalezhnosti, as a result of which more than a hundred people died. On February 22, a coup d'état began in Kyiv. Yanukovych was forcibly removed from the duties of the president, Alexander Turchinov temporarily took the place of the head of state. The government prepared documents for the impeachment and restoration of the 2004 constitution.

On the night of February 23, Viktor Yanukovych, together with close people, fled to Kharkov, and from there to the Crimea, asking Russia for political asylum. Once in Rostov-on-Don, he held a press conference at which he announced that he did not intend to resign and considered all the actions of the opposition an illegal seizure of power. But the Verkhovna Rada adopted a provision on the unconstitutional self-removal of Yanukovych from the presidency. Later Petro Poroshenko came to power.



According to Ukrainian media, Viktor Fedorovich and his family received protection from the Russian Federation by taking Russian citizenship. Initially, Yanukovych was in Rostov-on-Don, but subsequently lived in the elite village of Bakovka near Moscow in a house that is listed on the balance sheet of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. This was openly stated by the late singer Iosif Kobzon. He claimed that his plot was next to the house where Viktor Fedorovich lived. Only a high fence separated the artist and the politician. Where the statesman now lives, official sources do not say.

In Ukraine, 10 criminal cases have been initiated against the former president. Yanukovych was accused of organizing a deliberate massacre of citizens on the Maidan, misappropriation of royalties in the amount of 26 million hryvnias, treason, transferring Mezhyhirya land plots from state ownership to private ownership, and corruption.

Now Yanukovych is subject to the sanctions of European countries and North America, all the property of Viktor Fedorovich, which remained in Ukraine, was arrested through the court.

In January 2019, the Obolonsky Court of Kyiv found Yanukovych guilty in absentia of high treason and complicity in waging war in the Donbass. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison. And in May 2020, the same court ruled on his absentee detention without the right to bail.

Hiding in Russia, the politician practically did not appear in public and did not give interviews. He held a couple of press conferences and filed several written statements through his lawyers. One of them is an appeal against a sentence of high treason. The disappearance of Yanukovych from public space in Ukrainian political circles was associated with poor health and problems in his personal life.

Lawyers for the former president of Ukraine published Yanukovych's statements twice. In the first, he expressed his readiness to cooperate with the new Ukrainian government, including Volodymyr Zelensky. The second statement was also distributed by the Aver Lex Lawyers' Association. In it, Viktor Fedorovich addressed the updated composition of the State Bureau of Investigation on Maidan Affairs. He stated that he was ready to cooperate with investigators in order to restore the truth in the events of 2014.

In August 2020, America partially declassified the “peace plan” of the Russian Federation for the Donald Trump team. Allegedly, in a 2016 report on Russian interference in the US presidential election, details surfaced about plans for Ukraine. The theses of the document boiled down to the fact that the Donbass must be united, and Ukraine must be brought to federalization. Also one of the points was the return to Ukraine of Yanukovych.

In the summer, according to reports from a source close to the administration of the President of the Russian Federation, it became known that Viktor Yanukovych allegedly received the post of acting governor of the Khabarovsk Territory. However, the rumors were not confirmed. On July 20, 2020, the post was taken by Mikhail Vladimirovich Degtyarev.