Viktor Yanukovych facts for kids

In this article, the patronymic is Fedorovych and the family name is Yanukovych.

Quick facts for kids Viktor Yanukovych
Віктор Янукович Виктор Янукович
Official portrait, 2010

4th President of Ukraine
In office 25 February 2010 – 22 February 2014
Prime Minister	Yulia Tymoshenko Oleksandr Turchynov (acting) Mykola Azarov Serhiy Arbuzov (acting)
Preceded by	Viktor Yushchenko
Succeeded by	Petro Poroshenko
9th and 12th Prime Minister of Ukraine
In office 4 August 2006 – 18 December 2007
President	Viktor Yushchenko
Deputy	Mykola Azarov
Preceded by	Yuriy Yekhanurov
Succeeded by	Yulia Tymoshenko
In office 28 December 2004 – 5 January 2005
President	Leonid Kuchma
Deputy	Mykola Azarov
Preceded by	Mykola Azarov (acting)
Succeeded by	Mykola Azarov (acting)
In office 21 November 2002 – 7 December 2004
President	Leonid Kuchma
Deputy	Mykola Azarov
Preceded by	Anatoliy Kinakh
Succeeded by	Mykola Azarov (acting)
People's Deputy of Ukraine
In office 25 May 2006 – 12 September 2006
Constituency	At-large
In office 23 November 2007 – 19 February 2010
Constituency	At-large
Governor of Donetsk Oblast
In office 14 May 1997 – 21 November 2002
Preceded by	Serhii Polyakov
Succeeded by	Anatoliy Blyznyuk
Chairman of Donetsk Oblast Council
In office 14 May 1999 – 14 May 2001
Preceded by	Ivan Ponomaryov
Succeeded by	Borys Kolesnikov
Deputy Governor of Donetsk Oblast
In office August 1996 – May 1997
Governor	Serhii Polyakov

Personal details
Born	(1950-07-09) 9 July 1950 (age 74) Yenakiieve, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
Nationality	Soviet Union (1950–1991) Ukraine (1991–2014) Russia (alleged) (2014–present)
Political party	Party of Regions (1997–2014)
Other political affiliations	Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1980–1991)
Spouse	Lyudmilla Nastenko (m. 1971; div. 2016)
Children	Oleksandr Viktor (deceased)
Alma mater	Donetsk National Technical University Ukrainian State University of Finance and International Trade
Signature
Website	Viktor Yanukovych, President of Ukraine (Archived)

Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych (born 9 July 1950) is a former Ukrainian 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 from 2006 to 2010. A member of the pro-Russian Party of Regions, Yanukovych provoked mass protests — the Euromaidan — against his rejection of closer integration with the EU and was removed from the presidency by the Ukrainian parliament in 2014, at the time neighboring Russia started to annex Ukrainian Crimea. Since then, he has lived in exile in Russia.

Early life and early career
Political career
Exile
Personal life
Images for kids
See also

Early life and early career

Viktor Yanukovych was born in the village of Zhukovka near Yenakiieve in Donetsk Oblast, Ukrainian SSR, 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. 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, 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 Yenakiyeve 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.

Political career

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.

Yanukovych first ran for president in the 2004 election, where he advanced to the runoff and was declared the winner against former prime minister Viktor Yushchenko. However, allegations of electoral fraud and voter intimidation caused widespread protests and Kyiv's Independence Square was occupied in what became known as the Orange Revolution. The Ukrainian Supreme Court ultimately nullified the runoff election and ordered a rerun, which Yanukovych lost to Yushchenko. Yanukovych ran for President again in the 2010 election, this time beating Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in an election that was judged free and fair by international observers.

Yanukovych argued in favour of economic modernisation, increased spending and, initially, continuing trade negotiations with the European Union (EU). He pledged to remain non-aligned in defence policy. However, 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 made a sudden decision, amidst economic pressure from Russia, to withdraw from signing an association agreement with the EU and instead accept a Russian trade deal and loan bailout. This sparked mass protests against him that ultimately led to his ousting as President. The civil unrest peaked in February 2014, when almost 100 protesters were killed by police. Yanukovych then signed an agreement with the opposition, but secretly fled the capital later that day. The next day, 22 February, Ukraine's parliament voted to remove him from his position and schedule early elections on the grounds that he had withdrawn from his constitutional duties, rather than through following the impeachment process outlined in the Ukrainian constitution. Some of his own party voted for his removal.

On 24 February 2014, the new government issued a warrant for Yanukovych's arrest, accusing him of being responsible for the killing of protestors. Yanukovych went into exile in Russia, claiming to still be the legitimate head of state. On 18 June 2015, Yanukovych was officially deprived of the title of president by parliament. On 24 January 2019, he was sentenced in absentia to a thirteen year prison term for high treason by a Ukrainian court. In various polling conducted since his departure from office, Yanukovych was ranked the least popular president in Ukraine's independent history. Yanukovych has also given his name to a collective term for blunders made by Ukrainian politicians: Yanukisms.

Exile

On 26 November 2015, Yanukovych received a temporary asylum certificate in Russia for one year; later extended until November 2017. In October 2017, this was extended for another year. According to his lawyer Yanukovych did not consider acquiring Russian citizenship or a permanent residence permits but "Only a temporary shelter for returning to the territory of Ukraine". In 2017, Russian media suggested that Yanukovych is apparently living in Bakovka near Moscow, in a residence owned by Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Personal life

Yanukovych was married to Lyudmyla Oleksandrivna Nastenko. The couple married in 1971. With his wife Yanukovych had two sons, Oleksandr and Viktor, and three grandsons Viktor, Oleksandr and Iliya. From 2006 to 2014, the younger Viktor was a member of the Parliament of Ukraine; he died at Lake Baikal in 2015.

In February 2017, Yanukovych admitted that after 45 years of marriage he had divorced Lyudmyla. Ukrayinska Pravda claims that during the Yanukovych presidency, his wife Lyudmyla lived separately in Donetsk.

Images for kids

Viktor Yanukovych (first round) – percentage of total national vote, 2004
Viktor Yanukovych (final round) – percentage of total national vote, 2004
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets Prime Minister Yanukovych during a visit to Kyiv (22 December 2006).
Supporters of Viktor Yanukovych in Dnipropetrovsk, December 2009
Viktor Yanukovych (second round) – percentage of total national vote (48.95%), 2010
Yanukovych with Polish president Bronisław Komorowski, 3 February 2011
Yanukovych, Nicolas Sarkozy and Dmitry Medvedev before the beginning of the Nuclear Security Summit, 2010
Yanukovych and Russian president Dmitry Medvedev on 17 May 2010 near Memorial to the Holodomor Victims in Kyiv.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is greeted by Yanukovych in Kyiv, Ukraine, 2 July 2010
Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff greets Yanukovych upon his arrival to the Planalto Palace in Brasília, Brazil, 25 October 2011.
Signing documents with President Dmitry Medvedev, 2010
The results of the 2012 parliamentary election. Yanukovych's Party of Regions is in blue.
Mass protests in Kyiv, December 2013
Yanukovych signing the Agreement on settlement of political crisis in Ukraine with representatives of the opposition, 21 February 2014.
Pro-revolution activists outside parliament on 22 February 2014.
Yanukovych and Putin during moleben celebrated by metropolitan Lazarus of Crimea in memory of 1025th anniversary of Christianization of Kyivan Rus.