Leonid Kuchma (born August 9, 1938) was the second president of independent Ukraine from July 19, 1994 to January 23, 2005. He took office after winning the 1994 presidential election, defeating his rival, incumbent President Leonid Kravchuk. Kuchma was re-elected for an additional five-year presidential term in 1999.
Homeland and origins
Where did Leonid Kuchma start his life? His biography began in the village of Chaikino in the agricultural Chernihiv region. His father Daniil Prokofievich (1901-1942) served as a sapper in the army during the Great Patriotic War, was wounded and died in a field hospital in the Novgorod region when Leonid was four years old. Mother Praskovya Trofimovna worked all her life on the collective farm.
Years of study
Leonid Kuchma, after graduating from a rural school, entered the Faculty of Physics and Technology (FTF) of Dnepropetrovsk State University, from which he graduated in 1960,qualified as a mechanical engineer. The fact is that the FTF was not an easy faculty, a kind of technical university within a general university. It was specially created for the training of engineering personnel for the large-scale rocket and space production created in the Dnepropetrovsk region in the 1950s. Therefore, most of its graduates were sent to work at the Yuzhny Machine-Building Plant or at the Yuzhnoye rocket design bureau, which was led by the famous General Designer M. K. Yangel in the 1950s and 1960s. A young engineer, Leonid Kuchma, was also sent there.
Successful marriage as a career mover
What are the chances of a Ukrainian guy after a provincial university, the level of education in which was clearly lower ? That's right, none. Nevertheless, Leonid Kuchma in 1982 was already the first deputy general designer, who then was V. F. Utkin. Moreover, before that, he had been a party organizer of the Design Bureau for about 7 years, and there were more than 10 thousand communists in his party organization, so the appointment of a secretary of a party organization in such a team was the prerogative of the CPSU Central Committee.
How did he do it? The guiding thread for Leonid was a successful marriage to the daughter of the then chief technologist of Yuzhmash, who was later transferred to Moscow to the Ministry of General Mechanical Engineering as head of one of the main departments. Of course, the high-ranking father-in-law gave the son-in-law's career an initialmomentum.
Career in the Soviet period
In general, one way or another, but in 15 years Leonid Kuchma has gone from an ordinary engineer to the head of rocket technology tests at the Baikonur Cosmodrome with the rank of Assistant General Designer. This is, in fact, a very interesting and promising (in terms of further career growth) position. After all, preparation for launch and the launch of a rocket itself is the result of the work of many allied enterprises from all over the USSR that participated in the design and production of the entire missile complex, which, in addition to the rocket itself, also includes a launch pad or shaft, means of transportation, control system equipment, telemetry, navigation etc. The head of the tests daily reports to Moscow on the progress of the work to the high civil and military authorities, often accepts various high commissions. He is always in sight and heard, everyone knows him, he is referred to in cross-reports and messages to various authorities. After working for several years at the training ground, such a specialist usually moves to a high commanding chair at his own enterprise (or in another department).
So our hero in 1975 moved to the chair of the party secretary, first at Yuzhnoye Design Bureau, and then at Yuzhmash. In 1982, Kuchma left the party committee of the plant to take the position of First Deputy General Designer of the Design Bureau, and when the long-term director of Yuzhmash, Makarov, retired in the late 80s, he was appointed to the vacant position.
Thus, by the time of the collapse of the USSR, he came with a reputation as a majorbusiness executive, although throughout his party-production career he did not create or develop a single noticeable design or production project.
Premiership during Kravchuk's presidency
Back in 1990, the then head of the Communist Party of Ukraine Vladimir Ivashko offered Kuchma the premier post, but he refused, citing a lack of experience. Two years have passed, and it has become clear to many, including Kuchma himself, that the country under the leadership of President Kravchuk is heading for the abyss. Threatened with losing everything they had gained from the collapse of the Soviet Union, the eastern Ukrainian elite rallied and forced Kravchuk to appoint Kuchma prime minister with the right to issue decrees that have the force of law. Since then, for several years in Ukraine, taxes have been paid not according to the Tax Code, but according to a decree of the Cabinet of Ministers.
Leonid Kuchma - President
He resigned as prime minister of Ukraine in September 1993 to run for president in a snap election in 1994 on a platform of stimulating the economy by restoring economic relations with Russia and implementing rapid market reforms. He scored a clear victory against the incumbent President Leonid Kravchuk, receiving strong support from the industrial areas in the east and south. His worst results were in the west of the country.
In October 1994, Kuchma launched comprehensive economic reforms, includingremoval of price controls, tax cuts, privatization of industrial and agricultural enterprises, as well as reforms in foreign exchange regulation and banking. In 1996, the Ukrainian hryvnia was introduced, the initial exchange rate of which was 1.75 against the dollar.
Kuchma was re-elected in 1999 for his second term. This time, those regions that gave him strong support the first time voted for his opponent Petro Symonenko, while the regions that previously voted against him, on the contrary, supported him.
During the ten years of his presidency, he changed prime ministers almost every year. The most famous of them are Pavel Lazarenko, who received a term in the United States, and Viktor Yushchenko, who replaced Kuchma in 2004.
During the period of his two presidential terms in Ukraine, the scheme of state administration bodies and the legislative system that is still in force today has developed. A photo of Leonid Kuchma during his second presidency is shown below.
Role in 2004 electoral crisis
Kuchma's role in this crisis has not yet been fully clarified. After the second round on November 22, 2004, Yanukovych appeared to have won the election through fraud that caused the opposition and independent observers to challenge the results, leading to the Orange Revolution.
Kuchma is said to have been urged by Yanukovych and Viktor Medvedchuk (head of the presidential office) to declare a state of emergency and inaugurate Yanukovych. Kuchma did not. Yanukovych later accused Kuchma publicly of betrayal. After Viktor Yushchenko came to power in an unconstitutional third round of voting, he congratulated him on his victory and formally handed over power to his successor, but left Ukraine soon after. After all, Yushchenko's associates called Kuchma's regime criminal. He returned to Ukraine in March 2005, apparently having received assurances of his immunity from the new president.
For the last 10 years, he has been little noticed in the political life of the country, almost did not give interviews, did not shine on television screens. If it were not for the events of the last two years, then we might not have heard anything more about such a person as Leonid Danilovich Kuchma. Another bright page was added to his biography when in 2014 he was appointed by President Poroshenko as his personal representative in the contact group at the talks in Minsk to resolve the war in Donbass.
Family and personal life
Leonid Kuchma has been married to Lyudmila Kuchma since 1967. His only daughter, Elena, is married to Viktor Pinchuk, a Ukrainian oligarch of Jewish origin. Elena Pinchuk has a son Roman (born in 1991 from her previous marriage to Ukrainian businessman Igor Franchuk) and two daughters with Viktor Pinchuk.
After his retirement, Kuchma was allowed to keep the state dacha in Koncha-Zaspa near Kyiv. He was also allowed to keep his full presidential salary and all attendants, along with two government cars. The cost of maintaining the dacha and cars are paid from the state budget.
Another question is causing some hype around his person. Whoand such is Leonid Danilovich Kuchma, whose nationality is allegedly not Ukrainian at all, but Jewish. Most likely, this is complete nonsense. And it is spread by narrow-minded and poorly educated people, whose only goal is to cast a shadow of hostility on such a famous person as Kuchma Leonid Danilovich in any way. His real name is exactly the one under which he became known to the whole world, being the Ukrainian president for two terms.
