The second president of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma: biography, photo

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 presidential election in 1994, beating his rival - current president Leonid Kravchuk. Kuchma was reelected for an additional five-year presidential term in 1999.

Native places and origin

Where did Leonid Kuchma start his life? His biography began in the village of Chaikino in the agricultural Chernigov 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 enrolled in the Physics and Technology Department (FTF) of the Dnepropetrovsk State University, graduating in 1960, qualified as a mechanical engineer. The fact is that the FTF was a complicated faculty, a kind of technical university within a university of general profile. It was specially created to prepare engineering personnel for the large-scale rocket and space production set up in the Dnipropetrovsk region in the 1950s. Therefore, most of his graduates were sent to work at the South Machine Building Plant or the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau, which was headed by the famous General Designer MK Yangel in the 1950s and 1960s. The young engineer Leonid Kuchma was also sent there.

Successful marriage as a career propulsionist

What are the chances to break into the leading position in the design bureau, where in the best years up to 20 thousand employees, many of whom graduated from the leading technical universities of Moscow and Leningrad, had a Ukrainian guy after a provincial university, whose level of education was clearly lower? That's right, no. And yet Leonid Kuchma in 1982 was already the first deputy of the General Designer, which then was VF Utkin. And before that he had been party organizer KB for about 7 years, and in his party organization there were more than 10 thousand Communists, so the appointment of the secretary of the party organization in such a collective was the prerogative of the Central Committee of the CPSU.

How did he manage to do this? A guiding thread for Leonidas was a successful marriage to the daughter of the then chief technologist Yuzhmash, who was subsequently transferred to Moscow to the Ministry of General Mechanical Engineering for the post of chief of one of the commanders. Of course, a high-ranking father-in-law gave the son-in-law's initial impulse.

Career in the Soviet period

In general, one way or another, but in 15 years Leonid Kuchma has gone from a rank-and-file engineer to the head of rocket engineering tests at the Baikonur cosmodrome with the rank of Assistant General Designer. This, in fact, is very interesting and promising (in terms of further career growth) position. After all, the preparation for launching and launching the missile itself is the result of the work of a number of subcontractors from all over the USSR participating in the design and production of the entire missile complex, which includes, in addition to the missile itself, also a launching table or mine, transportation facilities, control, telemetry, navigation equipment etc. On the progress of work, the test leader reports daily to Moscow to the high civilian and military commanders, often receives various high commissions. He is always in sight and hearing, everyone knows him, he is referred to in cross reports and reports to various instances. Having worked for several years at the training ground, such a specialist is usually transplanted into a high office chair at his native enterprise (or in another agency).

So our hero in 1975, moved to the seat of the party secretary first KB "Yuzhnoe", and then Yuzhmash. From the party committee of the plant, Kuchma left in 1982 to become the first deputy general designer of the design bureau, and when in the late 1980s the long-term director of Yuzhmash, Makarov, retired, he was appointed to a vacant post.

Thus, at the time of the collapse of the USSR, he came with the reputation of a big business executive, although throughout his party-production career he did not create or develop any noticeable design or production project.

Presidency during the presidency of Kravchuk

Back in 1990, the then head of the Communist Party of Ukraine, Vladimir Ivashko, offered Kuchma a premiership, but he refused, citing lack of experience. Two years passed, and it became clear to many, including Kuchma himself, that the country, headed by President Kravchuk, was slipping into an abyss. Under the threat of losing everything that it acquired as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Eastern Ukrainian elite grouped and forced Kravchuk to appoint Kuchma as prime minister with the right to issue decrees with the force of laws. Since then, Ukraine has not paid taxes for several years according to the Tax Code, but according to the decree of the Cabinet of Ministers.

Leonid Kuchma - President

He resigned from the post of Prime Minister of Ukraine in September 1993 to run for presidency in the early elections in 1994 on a platform to stimulate the economy by restoring economic relations with Russia and carrying out rapid market reforms. He won a clean victory against incumbent President Leonid Kravchuk, having received strong support from industrial regions in the east and south. His worst results were in the west of the country.

In October 1994, Kuchma launched comprehensive economic reforms, including the removal of control over prices, tax cuts, the privatization of industrial and agricultural enterprises, as well as reforms in currency regulation and banking. In 1996, the Ukrainian hryvnia was introduced, the initial rate of which to the dollar was 1.75.

Kuchma was re-elected in 1999 for his second term. This time, the regions that gave him strong support for the first time voted for his opponent Petra Simonenko, and the regions that had previously voted against him, on the contrary, supported him.

For ten years of his presidency, he almost every year changed the premiers. The most famous of them is Pavel Lazarenko, who received a term in the US, and Viktor Yushchenko, who replaced Kuchma in 2004.

During the period of his two presidential terms in Ukraine, there has been a functioning scheme of state administration bodies and a legislative system. Photo by Leonid Kuchma of the second presidency is shown below.

Role in the electoral crisis of 2004

The role of Kuchma in this crisis is not yet fully understood. After the second round on November 22, 2004, it seemed that Yanukovych won the election by deception, because of which the opposition and independent observers disputed their results, which led to an "orange" revolution.

They say that Kuchma was urged by Yanukovich and Viktor Medvedchuk (head of the presidential office) to declare a state of emergency and conduct Yanukovych's inauguration. Kuchma did not do this. Later, Yanukovych accused Kuchma publicly of treason. After Viktor Yushchenko came to power as a result of an unconstitutional third round of voting, he congratulated him on winning and officially handed over power to the successor in the country, but soon after that he left Ukraine. After all, Yushchenko's associates called the Kuchma regime criminal. He returned to Ukraine in March 2005, probably having received assurances from his new president of his immunity.

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 TV screens. If it were not for the events of the last two years, we, perhaps, would not have heard anything more about such a person as Kuchma Leonid Danilovich. His biography replenished with another bright page when in 2014 he was appointed by President Poroshenko as his personal representative in the contact group at the talks in Minsk on the settlement of the war in the Donbass.

Family and personal life

Leonid Kuchma is married to Ludmila 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 with Ukrainian businessman Igor Franchuk) and two daughters from Victor Pinchuk.

After retirement, Kuchma was allowed to save a couch in Koncha Zaspa near Kiev. He was also allowed to keep his full presidential salary and all the staff, along with two state-owned cars. The expenses for the maintenance of summer cottages and cars are paid from the state budget.

Another question raises some excitement around his person. Who is Kuchma Leonid Danilovich, whose nationality is not even Ukrainian at all, but a Jew. Most likely, this is utter nonsense. And it is spread by people who are narrow-minded and poorly educated, whose only goal is to shade any shadow of ill will toward such a well-known personality as Kuchma Leonid Danilovich. His real name is the one by which he became known to the whole world, being two terms by the Ukrainian president.