(1938-08-09) 9 August 1938 (age 85) Chaikyne, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
Political party
Independent (1991–present)
Other political affiliations
Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1960–1991)
Spouse
Lyudmila Talalayeva
Children
Olena Pinchuk
Alma mater
Dnipropetrovsk National University
Signature
This article is part of a series about Leonid Kuchma
Political positions [uk]
Family and personal life
PA Pivdenmash
Ukrainian oligarchs
Dnipropetrovsk Mafia
2nd Prime Minister of Ukraine (government)
Privatisation [uk]
Decrees [uk]
1990s Donbas miners' strikes
2nd President of Ukraine
Presidency [uk]
Inaugurations [uk]
Multi-Vector Policy
First term (1994–1999)
Constitution
Denuclearisation
Budapest Memorandum
United States v. Lazarenko
Monetary reform (1996)
Russian–Ukrainian Friendship Treaty
Second term (1999–2004)
Constitutional referendum (2000)
Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 (2001)
Tuzla Island conflict (2003)
Iraq War
European Union integration
NATO integration
Post-presidency
Minsk agreements
Controversies and protests
Funeral of Patriarch Volodymyr
Assassination of Yevhen Shcherban
Death of Viacheslav Chornovil
Murder of Georgiy Gongadze
Cassette Scandal
Ukraine without Kuchma
Rise up, Ukraine!
Orange Revolution
Governments
Masol II
Marchuk
Lazarenko
Pustovoitenko
Yushchenko
Kinakh
Yanukovych I
Elections
1990
1994
parliamentary
presidential
1998
1999
2002
Media gallery
v
t
e
Leonid Danylovych Kuchma (Ukrainian: Леонід Данилович Кучма, IPA:[ˈlɛ.ɔ.nʲiddɐˈnɪ.lɔ.ʋet͡ʃˈkut͡ʃ.mɐ]; born 9 August 1938) is a Ukrainian politician who was the second president of Ukraine from 19 July 1994 to 23 January 2005.[3] The only President of Ukraine to serve two terms, his presidency was marked by democratic backsliding and the growth of the Ukrainian oligarchs, as well as several scandals and improvement of Russia–Ukraine relations.
After a successful career in the machine-building industry of the Soviet Union, Kuchma began his political career in 1990, when he was elected to the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian parliament); he was re-elected in 1994. He served as Prime Minister of Ukraine between October 1992 and September 1993. Kuchma took office after winning the 1994 presidential election against his rival, incumbent President Leonid Kravchuk. Kuchma won re-election for an additional five-year term in 1999. 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.[4]
Kuchma's administration began a campaign of media censorship in 1999, leading to arrests of journalists, the death of Georgiy Gongadze, and the subsequent Cassette Scandal and mass protests.[5] 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.[6] Kuchma declined to seek a third term in office, instead supporting Party of Regions candidate Viktor Yanukovych for the 2004 election. Following public protests over the alleged electoral fraud which escalated into the Orange Revolution, Kuchma took a neutral stance and was a mediator between Viktor Yushchenko and Viktor Yanukovych. Between 2014 and 2020, Kuchma was a special presidential representative of Ukraine at the quasi peace talks regarding the ongoing War in Donbas.
Kuchma's legacy has proven controversial, and he has been described as authoritarian by various sources. Widespread corruption and media censorship under Kuchma's administration continue to have an impact on Ukraine today, and he has been accused of promoting oligarchism.
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).
^"People's Deputy of Ukraine of the I convocation". Official portal (in Ukrainian). Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. Retrieved 22 December 2014.
^"People's Deputy of Ukraine of the II convocation". Official portal (in Ukrainian). Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. Retrieved 22 December 2014.
^"Leonid Kuchma". Official web-site of President of Ukraine. Archived from the original on 29 May 2014. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
^Adrian Karatnycky, "Ukraine's Orange Revolution," Foreign Affairs, Vol. 84, No. 2 (March – April 2005), pp. 35–52 in JSTOR
^Dyczok, Marta (2006). "Was Kuchma's Censorship Effective? Mass Media in Ukraine before 2004". Europe-Asia Studies. 58 (2): 215–238. doi:10.1080/09668130500481386. ISSN 0966-8136. JSTOR 20451184. S2CID 154926759.
^Robert S. Kravchuk, "Kuchma as Economic Reformer," Problems of Post-Communism Vol. 52#5 September–October 2005, pp 48–58
Leonid Danylovych Kuchma (Ukrainian: Леонід Данилович Кучма, IPA: [ˈlɛ.ɔ.nʲid dɐˈnɪ.lɔ.ʋet͡ʃ ˈkut͡ʃ.mɐ]; born 9 August 1938) is a Ukrainian politician...
as president in 1994. He was defeated by his former prime minister, LeonidKuchma, who then served as president for two terms. After his presidency, Kravchuk...
resignation of President LeonidKuchma, and preceding the Orange Revolution. Unlike the Orange Revolution, Ukraine without Kuchma was effectively extinguished...
minister under President LeonidKuchma. After his dismissal as prime minister, Yushchenko went into opposition to President Kuchma and founded Our Ukraine...
appointed as the Head of the Administration (i.e. Governor). President LeonidKuchma appointed Yanukovych to the post of prime minister following Anatoliy...
resign from the office, following a power struggle with Prime Minister LeonidKuchma. After the 2014 Ukrainian revolution, Viktor Yanukovych abandoned his...
presidents of Ukraine. Leonid Kravchuk was the inaugural president, serving three years from 1991 until his resignation in 1994. LeonidKuchma was the only president...
politics. Under President Leonid Kravchuk, the Dnipropetrovsk Mafia held the premiership from 1992 to 1993 under LeonidKuchma. Kuchma's rule was preceded by...
between President Leonid Kravchuk and the Verkhovna Rada. The elections saw Kravchuk defeated by his former Prime Minister LeonidKuchma. They were the first...
1991, losing to Leonid Kravchuk. Following the 1994 Ukrainian presidential election, Chornovil became one of President LeonidKuchma's foremost critics...
of Ukraine (July 1994 to January 2005) and Ukrainian representative LeonidKuchma Russian Ambassador to Ukraine and Russian representative Mikhail Zurabov...
1999, with a second round on 14 November. The result was a victory for LeonidKuchma, who defeated Petro Symonenko in the run-off. As of 2023, this is the...
Ukrainian political scandal in November 2000 in which Ukrainian president LeonidKuchma was caught on tape ordering the months-earlier kidnapping of journalist...
against then-President of Ukraine LeonidKuchma. During the Cassette Scandal, audiotapes were released on which Kuchma, Volodymyr Lytvyn and other top-level...
murdered in 2000. Persistent rumours suggested that Ukrainian President LeonidKuchma had ordered the killing. Gen. Oleksiy Pukach, a former police officer...
Prime Minister since 2002, was supported by the outgoing President LeonidKuchma, as well as by the Russian government and then president Vladimir Putin...
merged into the Internal Troops of Ukraine in 2000 by then-President LeonidKuchma as part of a "cost-saving" scheme. Following the 2014 Revolution of...
married to Olena Pinchuk, the daughter of former Ukrainian President LeonidKuchma. Pinchuk was born in 1960 in Kyiv to Jewish parents who moved to the...
both within and outside Ukraine primarily as an effort by President LeonidKuchma to distract attention from the Cassette Scandal, which opponents claimed...
foreign countries. Less than a year later, he was appointed by President LeonidKuchma as Prime Minister, serving for just over a year before being replaced...
Пинчук, Elena Pinchuk) is the daughter of former Ukrainian president LeonidKuchma. Together with her husband Viktor Pinchuk, she owns Ukraine's biggest...
opposition to the Kuchma government in opposition to what they claimed was the authoritarian governing style of Ukraine's president LeonidKuchma. After the...
the Kuchma group. The fifth group is the Privatbank group. The Derkach family is very close to LeonidKuchma who worked side by side with Leonid Derkach...
Liudmyla Mykolaivna Kuchma (née Talalaieva; born 19 June 1940) is the wife of second Ukrainian President LeonidKuchma and a former First Lady of Ukraine...
Cossacks. The award was established on May 3, 1995 by Ukrainian president LeonidKuchma to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War...
between 2002 and 2005 as chief of staff to then Ukrainian president LeonidKuchma. After this he was absent from national politics until 2018. In November...
Global Information
