Viktor Yanukovych

Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych (born 9 July 1950) is a 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 (parliament) from 2006 to 2010. Yanukovych was removed from the presidency in the 2014 Revolution of Dignity, which followed months of protests against him. Since then, he has lived in exile in Russia.

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. However, 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. 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 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 The next day, Ukraine's parliament voted to remove him and schedule early elections on the grounds that he had withdrawn from his constitutional duties.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.