Leonid Kuchma

The second president of Ukraine .

Born in 1938 in a small rural village located in Chernigov Oblast, northern Ukrainian SSR. He entered Dnepropetrovsk State University, earned a degree, and subsequently worked in aerospace engineering at Yuzhmash, while at the same time joining the Communist Party.

He had been criticizing the Soviet Communist Party since the late 1980s and became a prominent figure as a reformist within the party. When Ukraine became independent immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union, he became prime minister under President Leonid Krauchuk, but resigned after one year. After independence, Ukraine suffered from enormous price rises, collapse of social welfare, and the spread of the underground economy due to political instability, breakdown of the central government's economic control, breakdown of cooperation with former Soviet Union members, and heavy energy import burden.

In addition, then-President Krauchuk aggravated Ukraine's economic chaos by adhering to a controlled economic policy that no longer worked. Kuchma actively criticized President Krauchuk's economic policies, swept votes mainly in the southeastern region, and was elected president with 52% of the vote in the 1994 Ukrainian presidential election .

Kuchma, through Central Bank Governor Viktor Yushchenko, suppressed currency issuance to stabilize the currency and introduced a new currency, Hryvnia, which succeeded in dramatically lowering the inflation rate.[5] However, the proportion of the underground economy was still very high, and the economic growth rate was always negative.[6] , Above all, the outbreak of the Russian financial crisis in 1998 raised questions about Kuchma's ability to manage the economy, and his approval rating fell. However, Vyacheslav Chornobyl , a pro-European politician who almost became an opponent in the 1999 Ukrainian presidential election, died instantly in a car accident on March 25, 1999.[7] Since the candidate in the runoff election was Petro Simonenko (Петро Симоненко, 1952-), the Ukrainian Communist Party candidate, he received overwhelming support from the West and was re-elected with 56% of the vote.[8] Although there were side effects from the appointment of Viktor Yushchenko as Prime Minister, from then on Ukraine's economy returned to a growth trend, successfully normalizing the Ukrainian economy, and starting to record a positive growth rate in 2000. Ukraine's per capita GDP, which was $632 in 1999, tripled to $1,875 by 2005.

However, in 2001, it was reported by Oleksandr Moroz that Kuchma had ordered the kidnapping of Georgiy Gongadze (Георгій Ґонґадзе, 1969–2000), a Georgian-Ukrainian film director and journalist.[9][10] The cassette gate (Касетний скандал) bursts and the tape is released .[11] Kuchma's approval rating fell after it was revealed that he had embezzled a large sum of about $1 billion. From December 15, 2000 to March 9, 2001 , Ukrainian opposition parties and reformists, led by Oleksandr Moroz and Viktor Yushchenko , staged opposition protests in a peaceful movement called 'Ukraine without Kuchma'.[12] Despite economic growth, the lame duck situation accelerated , with an approval rating of 9%, but he was not impeached. In the end, it suffered a crushing defeat in the 2002 general election, finishing only third in vote percentage.

Because he was in such a lame duck situation, he gave up running for the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election and supported Viktor Yanukovych as his successor in the 2004 presidential election . Yanukovych seemed likely to cruise along with the support of the Ukrainian Communist Party , but he was competing with Yushchenko, who received support from center-left forces including the Ukrainian Reformists and the Ukrainian Socialist Party. In the process, suspicious situations continued to arise during the election process, including an assassination attempt on Yushenko, and eventually, a large number of cases of duplicate voting were discovered in the eastern region, leading to large-scale protests and the election being overturned (the so-called Orange Revolution ). As a result, he had to watch as Yushenko, who turned political, became president, and ended his term watching the country fall into chaos until the end.[13]

Since then, he has not been punished for the orange revolution or the Heohrig Gona -je incident, and has not been punished for the Ukrainian diplomacy since Euromidan . In other words, there was a lot of ruins, but in fact, the evaluation rose to some extent.

When Russia's invasion of Ukraine occurred in 2022, a statement was issued criticizing and cursing Russia. #

While in power from 1995 to 2004, he walked a tightrope diplomacy between the European Union , the United States , and Russia and actively used a genius economic bureaucrat named Viktor Yushchenko.[14] He reformed and developed the economic sector that had been ruined by former President Krauchuk. At the same time, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) is operated like a secret police, oppressing political opponents and the media.[15] Although he lost public support due to his oppressive authoritarian rule, his credit for restoring the country's economy, which was in ruins, to some extent, cannot be denied.[16]

It can also be highly appreciated that he stepped down from his position after his term ended and that he did not engage in bloody suppression during the Orange Revolution . In addition , its ability to discover talent is recognized in that it trained major Ukrainian politicians such as Yulia Tymoshenko , Viktor Yushchenko , and Viktor Yanukovych, who led Ukraine as prime minister and president from 2005 to 2014 .[17] Kuchma is the only president in Ukrainian history to have been re-elected.

Of course, due to the fact that he brought upon himself the political chaos in the middle and latter half of his second term, and the fact that he acted in a way that earned him the hatred of both the reformists and the pro-Russian faction.[18] It is true that the evaluation was not good for a while. However, Tymoshenko, Yushenko, and Yanukovych showed political power that was even worse than that of Kuchma and showed incompetence in resolving the economic crisis. 'Still, there was 'order' back then.[19] , It was a time when life was improving day by day,' and Kuchima's evaluation relatively increased. In particular, after Euromaidan in 2013, he resumed his activities on the diplomatic front while serving as Ukraine's representative, and thanks to this, public opinion polls show that he is the most highly regarded Ukrainian president among former presidents Volodymyr Zelensky .