Leonid Kuchma

Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine

Leonid Danylovych Kuchma 9 August 1938 Chaikyne, Novhorod-Siverskyi Raion, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union

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3 June 2019 – 28 July 2020

Second president of Ukraine Leonid Danylovych Kuchma (Ukrainian: Леоні́д Дани́лович Ку́чма ; born 9 August 1938) is a Ukrainian politician who was the second President of independent Ukraine from 19 July 1994 to 23 January 2005. Kuchma's presidency was surrounded by numerous corruption scandals and the lessening of media freedoms. 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 Ukrainian Prime Minister between October 1992 and September 1993. Kuchma took office after winning the 1994 presidential election against his rival, the incumbent 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. 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. Between 2014 and 2020, Kuchma was a special presidential representative of Ukraine at the semi-official peace talks regarding the ongoing War in Donbas.