Viktor Fyodorovych Yanukovych (born 9 July 1950) was Prime Minister of Ukraine from 21 November 2002 to 5 January 2005 (succeeding Anatoliy Kinakh and preceding Mykola Azarov) and from 4 August 2006 to 18 December 2007 (succeeding Yuriy Yekhanurov and preceding Yulia Tymoshenko) and President of Ukraine from 25 February 2010 to 22 February 2014 (succeeding Viktor Yushchenko and preceding Oleksandr Turchynov). The corrupt Yanukovych was overthrown in the Euromaidan revolution of 2014, and he fled to Russia.
Biography[]
Viktor Fyodorovych Yanukovych was born in Yenakiyevo, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union in 1950, the son of a Polish-Belarusian father and a Russian mother. He had a troubled youth, being arrested multiple times for petty crimes such as robbery and assault. He worked in transport companies from 1980 to 1996, and he served as Governor of Donetsk Oblast from 1997 to 2002. Yanukovych went on to serve as Prime Minister from 2002 to 2005 under President Leonid Kuchma, and he ran for president in 2004; he initially defeated his opponent Viktor Yushchenko, but two runoffs were held after the Supreme Court found that Yanukovych had engaged in fraud and voter intimidation (which also led to the "Orange Revolution" protests). In 2006, President Yushchenko appointed Yanukovych as Prime Minister as a symbol of rapprochement with Russia.
In 2010, Yanukovych was elected President, defeating Yulia Tymoshenko in a free and fair election. In November 2013, he rejected a pending European Union association agreement and instead pursued a Russian loan bailout and closer ties with Russia, leading to the Euromaidan protests. In January 2014, these protests turned into deadly clashes as the corrupt and authoritarian Yanukovych used force in failed attempts to suppress the protests. On 21 February 2014, with the country on the brink of civil war, Yanukovych left the capital for a speaking engagement in Kharkiv, coming under fire as he left Kiev, and he proceeded on to Crimea and then into exile in southern Russia. On 22 February, the Verkhovna Rada formally removed him from the presidency, and the parliament issued a warrant for his arrest due to his mass killing of civilians.