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| name=Leonid Kuchma<br><small>Леонід Данилович Кучма</small> |
| name=Leonid Kuchma<br><small>Леонід Данилович Кучма</small> |
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| nationality = [[Ukrainians|Ukrainian]] |
| nationality = [[Ukrainians|Ukrainian]] |
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| order = [[President of Ukraine#List of Presidents of Ukraine|2nd]] [[President of Ukraine]] |
| order = [[President of Ukraine#List of Presidents of Ukraine|2nd]] [[President of Ukraine]] |
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| primeminister = <small>[[Vitaliy Masol]]<br> [[Yevhen Marchuk]]<br> [[Pavlo Lazarenko]]<br>[[Vasyl Durdynets]]<br> [[Valeriy Pustovoitenko]]<br> [[Viktor Yushchenko]]<br> [[Anatoliy Kinakh]]<br> [[Viktor Yanukovych]]<br> [[Mykola Azarov]] (Acting) |
| primeminister = <small>[[Vitaliy Masol]]<br> [[Yevhen Marchuk]]<br> [[Pavlo Lazarenko]]<br>[[Vasyl Durdynets]]<br> [[Valeriy Pustovoitenko]]<br> [[Viktor Yushchenko]]<br> [[Anatoliy Kinakh]]<br> [[Viktor Yanukovych]]<br> [[Mykola Azarov]] (Acting) |
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This article needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (March 2011)
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Leonid Kuchma
Леонід Данилович Кучма | |
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| 2nd President of Ukraine | |
| In office July 19, 1994 – January 23, 2005 | |
| Prime Minister | Vitaliy Masol Yevhen Marchuk Pavlo Lazarenko Vasyl Durdynets Valeriy Pustovoitenko Viktor Yushchenko Anatoliy Kinakh Viktor Yanukovych Mykola Azarov (Acting) |
| Preceded by | Leonid Kravchuk |
| Succeeded by | Viktor Yushchenko |
| Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine | |
| In office July 19, 1994 – January 23, 2005 | |
| Preceded by | Leonid Kravchuk |
| Succeeded by | Viktor Yushchenko |
| 3rd Prime Minister of Ukraine | |
| In office October 13, 1992 – September 22, 1993 | |
| President | Leonid Kravchuk |
| Preceded by | Valentyn Symonenko |
| Succeeded by | Yukhym Zvyahilsky |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1938-08-09) August 9, 1938 (age 85) Novhorod-Siversky Raion, Chernihiv Oblast, Ukrainian SSR |
| Nationality | Ukrainian |
| Political party | None |
| Other political affiliations | Party of Regions (2001) |
| Spouse | Ludmila Kuchma (Talalayeva) |
| Children | Olena Pinchuk |
| Alma mater | Dnipropetrovsk National University |
| Occupation | Politician |
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Leonid Danylovych Kuchma (Ukrainian: Леонід Данилович Кучма) (born August 9, 1938) was the second President of independent Ukraine from July 19, 1994, to January 23, 2005. Kuchma took office after winning the 1994 presidential election against his rival, incumbent Leonid Kravchuk. Kuchma won re-election for an additional 5-year term in 1999.
His presidency was surrounded by numerous corruption scandals and the lessening of media freedoms. Corruption accelerated after Kuchma's election in 1994, but in 2000-2001, his power began to weaken in the face of exposures in the media.[1]
Under his watch the Ukrainian economy continued to decline until 1999, whereas growth was recorded since 2000, bringing relative prosperity to some segments of urban residents. During his presidency, Ukrainian-Russian ties began to improve.[2]
Kuchma was born in a village of Chaikine Chernihiv Oblast. His father Danylo Prokopovych (1901–1942) had died at the field hospital 756 near a village of Novoselytsia during World War II and his mother Paraska Trokhymivna worked at a farm. Kuchma attended the Kostoborove general education school in the neighboring Semenivka Raion. He enrolled to Dnipropetrovsk National University and graduated it in 1960 with a degree in rocket science as an engineer-mechanic. Kuchma is a candidate of technical sciences. The same year he joined the Communist Party of Soviet Union.
After graduation Kuchma worked in a field of aerospace engineering for the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau. At 28 he became a technical tests director at Baikonur (Kazakh SSR). There are speculations that Kuchma's earlier career was significantly boosted by his marriage to Lyudmila Mykolaivna Kuchma (Talalayeva) (1967), an adopted daughter of a chief engineer of Yuzhmash and later a minister of mid-class machine-building of USSR Gennadiy Tumanov.[citation needed][3][4] At 38 Kuchma became the Communist party chairman at Yuzhmash and a member of the Central Committee of Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine. He was a delegate of the 27th and 28th Congresses of the Communist Party of Soviet Union.
In 1982 Kuchma was appointed the first deputy of general design engineer and from 1986 to 1992 he held position of a general director at the manufacturing complex "Yuzhny Machine-building Plant". From 1990 to 1992 Kuchma was a member of the Ukrainian parliament (1st (12) convocation, Committee on Defence and State Security), and became Prime Minister of Ukraine in 1992. In 1991 he became one of the founders of the Academy of technological sciences of Ukraine.
Kuchma resigned from the position of Prime Minister of Ukraine in September 1993 to successfully run for the presidency in 1994 on a platform to boost the economy by restoring economic relations with Russia and faster pro-market reforms. He was re-elected in 1999 to his second term. During Kuchma's Presidency opposition papers were closed and several journalists died in mysterious circumstances.[5]
In October 1994, Kuchma announced comprehensive economic reforms, including reduced subsidies, lifting of price controls, lower taxes, privatization of industry and agriculture, and reforms in currency regulation and banking. The parliament approved the plan's main points. The International Monetary Fund promised a $360 million loan to initiate reforms.
He was re-elected in 1999 to his second term. Opponents accused him of involvement in the killing in 2000 of journalist Georgiy Gongadze (see also SBU, "Cassette Scandal", Mykola Mel'nychenko), which he has always denied. Critics also blamed Kuchma for restrictions on press freedom. Kuchma is believed to have played a key role in sacking the CabinetofViktor YushchenkobyVerkhovna Rada on April 26, 2001.
Kuchma's Prime Minister from 2002 until early January 2005 was Viktor Yanukovych, after Kuchma dismissed Anatoliy Kinakh, his previous appointee.
Kuchma signed a "Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership" with Russia, and endorsed a round of talks with the CIS. Additionally, he referred to Russian as "an official language". He signed a special partnership agreement with NATO and even raised the possibility of membership of the alliance.
After Kuchma's popularity at home and abroad sank as he became mired in corruption scandals, he turned to Russia as his new ally, saying Ukraine needed a "multivector" foreign policy that balanced eastern and western interests[citation needed].
From 1998 to 2000, Kuchma's bodyguard and former KGB employee, Mykola Mel'nychenko, bugged Kuchma's office and turned over the recordings to an opposition member of the Ukraine Parliament. The release of the tapes – dubbed "Kuchmagate" by the Ukrainian press – supposedly revealed Kuchma approving the sale of radar systems to Saddam Hussein and ordering the director of Ukraine's intelligence agency to "take care" of journalist Georgiy Gongadze, who had been following the government’s connections to illegal arms sales, among other allegations.
In September 2000 journalist Georgiy Gongadze disappeared and his headless corpse was found mutilated on 3 November 2000. On 28 November, opposition politician Oleksandr Moroz publicised the tape recordings implicating Kuchma in Gongadze's murder. In 2005 the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s office instigated criminal proceedings against Kuchma and members of his former administration in connection with the murder of Gongadze.[6] It is rumored, however, that Kuchma had been unofficially granted immunity from prosecution in return for his graceful departure from office in 2005.[7][8]
Critics of the tape point to the difficulty of Mel'nychenko recording 500 hours of dictaphone tape unaided and undetected, the lack of material evidence of said recording equipment and other doubts which question the authenticity and motive of the release of the tape.
The General Prosecutor of Ukraine's Office canceled its resolution to deny opening of criminal cases against Kuchma and other politicians within the Gongadze-case on October 9, 2010.[9] On March 22nd, 2011, Ukraine opened an official investigation into the murder of Gongadze and two days later Ukrainian prosecutors charged Leonid Kuchma with involvement in the murder.[10][11]
One of the taped conversations is about the Saint Petersburg Immobilien und Beteiligungs AG, a company suspected of facilitating Saint Petersburg mobsters, Colombian drug lords, and transcontinental money laundering. Vladimir Putin was one of the company's advisers from 1992 until he became President of Russia in 2000. On the tapes, Kuchma discusses Putin's Europe-wide operation to get into possession of all documents that could be used as evidence.[12]
Kuchma's role in the election's crisis of 2004 is not entirely clear. After the second round on November 22, 2004, it appeared that Yanukovych had won the election by fraud, which caused the opposition and independent observers to dispute the results, leading to the Orange Revolution.
Kuchma was urged by Yanukovych and Viktor Medvedchuk (the head of the presidential office) to declare a state of emergency and hold the inauguration of Yanukovych. He denied the request by admittedly stating in a phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin that he refused to pass the government into the hands of an alleged Donetsk criminal. [citation needed] Later, Yanukovych publicly accused Kuchma of a betrayal.
Nevertheless, Kuchma refused to officially dismiss Prime Minister Yanukovych after the parliament passed a motion of no confidence against the Cabinet on December 1, 2004.
Soon after, Kuchma left the country. He returned to Ukraine in March 2005.
Kuchma stated in October 2009 he would vote for Victor Yanukovych at the Ukrainian presidential election, 2010.[13] Although Kuchma in conversation with United States Ambassador to Ukraine John F. Tefft, in a document dated February 2, 2010 uncovered during the United States diplomatic cables leak, called the voters choice between Yanukovych and Yulia Tymoshenko during the second round of the 2010 presidential election as a choice between “bad and very bad" and praised (the candidate eliminated in the first round of the election) Arseniy Yatsenyuk instead.[14]
Kuchma's daughter Elena Franchuk founded the ANTIAIDS Foundation in 2003.[16] She is married to politician Viktor Pinchuk, a famous industrialist and philanthropist whose Victor Pinchuk Foundation regularly hosts a philanthropic forum at the annual World Economic ForuminDavos. They bought the world's most expensive house, in London, for £80 million.[17][18]
Viktor and Olena Pinchuks have a son Roman who attends Brown University.
According to the Ukrainian magazine Focus Olena Pinchuk placed among the top 10 most influential women in Ukraine for 2010.[19]
Kuchma was an amateur guitar player in his younger years. He was also known for his skill at the complicated card game preferans. He was allowed to keep the state-owned dachainKoncha-Zaspa for his personal use upon completion of his state duties.[20] The government order #15-r that would allowed for Kuchma to keep his estate was signed by the acting prime-minister Mykola Azarov on January 19, 2005. Kuchma was also allowed to keep his full presidential salary and all the service personnel along with two state-owned vehicles. That order also stated that for everything it would paid out of the state budget.
The next month a minister of Justice Roman Zvarych said that he has intentions to review that order. On February 28, 2005 the government of Tymoshenko canceled the order, but the new government of Yanukovych reinstated it once again on April 18, 2007.
Kuchma was awarded the Polish Order of the White Eagle, in 1997 and the Azerbaijani Istiglal Order for his contributions to development of Azerbaijan-Ukraine relations and strategic cooperation between the states by President of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev on August 6, 1999.[21]
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| Political offices | ||
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| Preceded by | Prime Minister of Ukraine 1992–1993 |
Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | President of Ukraine 1994–2005 |
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| Preceded by Office created |
Leader of the Party of Regions 2001 |
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Candidates in the 1994 Ukrainian presidential election
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Candidates in the 1999 Ukrainian presidential election
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| Ukrainian People's Republic (1917–1920) |
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| West Ukrainian People's Republic (1918–1919) |
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| Hetmanate (1918) |
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| Ukrainian People's Republic1 (1920–1992) |
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| Ukrainian National Council2 (1941) |
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| Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic3 (1922–1991) |
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| Ukraine (since 1991) |
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