Viktor Yushchenko

The third President of Ukraine. He was born on January 23, 1954 in the village of Khoruzhivka, Sumy region. He has two sons - Andriy and Taras, three daughters - Vitalina, Sofia and Khristina. In 1975 he graduated from Ternopil Finance and Economics Institute. Then he worked as an accountant's assistant. In 1977 he joined the CPRF. From 1985 he worked at the Derzhbank of the USSR, later, at the request of Vadim Hetman, he moved to the Kiev branch of the Agroprombank of the USSR.

From June 1993 to June 1999 - Head of the Board of the National Bank of Ukraine. During the time of Yushchenko's presidency of the National Bank and Pavlo Lazarenko's premiership, Ukraine underwent a monetary reform (1996) and introduced a national monetary unit - the hryvnia. Since the end of 1999 and till June 2001 Victor Yushchenko is the Prime Minister of Ukraine. Yushchenko resigned from his post on January 29, 2001 due to the resolution of the Verkhovna Rada about the lack of confidence in the Cabinet of Ministers. From that moment Yushchenko started drifting towards the opposition forces.

At the beginning of 2002, Viktor Yushchenko formed the Our Ukraine electoral bloc, which was in opposition to the government. The bloc included 10 center-right parties. In the 2002 elections to the Verkhovna Rada, NU won 24.7% of the votes in the large-mandate constituency (1st place among the parties and blocs) and formed the largest faction in the Verkhovna Rada. Later on, he was the candidate of the opposition forces for the post of the President of Ukraine in the 2004 elections.

Yushchenko was killed during the election campaign. As it was later confirmed, one of the dioxin types was used in the shooting. Investigation of this crime by law enforcement agencies did not yield any results, even after Viktor Yushchenko was elected president. According to the results of the first round of voting, Yushchenko won 39.90% against 39.26% of his main opponent, pro-government candidate Viktor Yanukovych.

The second round of voting, according to the majority of international organizations, was held with brutal violations of electoral legislation, with the use of technologies of nationwide vote rigging, including interference in the electronic vote counting system at the Central Election Commission. These facts were reported to the Supreme Court of Ukraine, as a result of which a repeat vote was ordered. Following the results of this vote, Viktor Yushchenko became the President of Ukraine (with 51.99% of votes against Viktor Yanukovych's 44.20%). These events took place against the backdrop of unprecedented protest actions, known as the "Pomaranche" revolution.

Viktor Yushchenko was president of Ukraine for only one cadence. In 2010, he lost the presidential race to Yuliya Tymoshenko and Viktor Yanukovych, who was made head of state.