Leonid Kravchuk

Leonid Makarovych Kravchuk ( uk, Леонід Макарович Кравчук; 10 January 1934 – 10 May 2022) was a Ukrainian politician and the first president of Ukraine, serving from 5 December 1991 until 19 July 1994. In 1992, he signed the Lisbon Protocol, undertaking to give up Ukraine's nuclear arsenal. He was also the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada and a People's Deputy of Ukraine serving in the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (united) faction.

After a political crisis involving the president and the prime minister, Kravchuk resigned from the presidency, but ran for a second term as president in 1994. He was defeated by his former prime minister, Leonid Kuchma, who then served as president for two terms. After his presidency, Kravchuk remained active in Ukrainian politics, serving as a People's Deputy of Ukraine in the Verkhovna Rada and the leader of the parliamentary group of Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (united) from 2002 to 2006.

Early life

Leonid Makarovych Kravchuk was born on 10 January 1934 in the village of Velykyi Zhytyn (''Żytyń Wielki'') to an ethnic Ukrainian peasant family. At that time the village was part of Poland (Second Polish Republic). It became part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic after the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939 when Kravchuk was a child. His father served in the Polish army during the 1930s, and later he and his wife worked for the local osadniks (Polish colonists). During World War II, Kravchuk's father perished on the front lines.

Kravchuk married a mathematics teacher, Antonina Mykhailivna Mishura, in 1957. First Lady of the United States from 1989 to 1993, Barbara Bush (wife of the 41st President of the United States George H. W. Bush), described Antonina in her memoirs: "She was the nicest young woman, a math teacher with absolutely no interest in politics".

Kravchuk went to a vocational school before studying Marxist political economy at Kyiv University. He graduated at 24 and became a political economy teacher in Chernivtsi, in southwest Ukraine, before entering politics. Kravchuk joined the Communist Party of Ukraine in 1958 and rose through the ranks of the party and of its ''agitprop'' department.

Presidency

Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR

He became a member of the Ukrainian Communist Party Bureau in 1989, and on 23 July 1990, became Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR, becoming the republic's nominal head of state. On 24 October 1990, the monopoly of the Communist Party of Ukraine on power was abolished, and thus, Kravchuk became not only the nominal, but also the actual head of the republic.

After the 19–21 August 1991 Soviet coup attempt Kravchuk, who did not support the attempt to remove Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev from power, resigned from the Communist Party. After the Verkhovna Rada passed the Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine on 24 August, the constitution was amended to create the post of President of Ukraine. Before the vote for the Declaration of Independence of Ukraine Kravchuk was instrumental in persuading the communists parliamentary majority to accept the opposition's demands of Ukrainian Independence. Participants in the Belovezha talks said Kravchuk rejected any efforts to keep the Soviet Union going with reforms.

Following the Act of Declaration of Independence Kravchuk was vested with presidential powers, thus becoming both ''de facto'' and ''de jure'' head of state. Later that year, on 5 December 1991, voters formally elected him president in Ukraine's first presidential election. On the same day, the voters voted overwhelmingly to secede from the Soviet Union—a move which Kravchuk now fully supported. This made Kravchuk the first head of state of independent Ukraine.

President of Ukraine

On 25 February 1992, as President of Ukraine, Kravchuk, issued Presidential decree 98/92 ''About the changes in the system of central bodies of executive power of Ukraine''.

On 6 May 1992, Kravchuk met George H. W. Bush in the United States and signed an agreement for the full removal of all nuclear tactical weapons from Ukrainian territory by 1 July, and in return obtained a credit line of $110 million to buy U.S. commodities. It led to the signing of the Budapest Memorandum. The document was signed on 5 December 1994 at the summit of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Budapest. In it, Ukraine, a nuclear power at that time, voluntarily gave up its nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees.

Kravchuk achieved and strengthened the formal sovereignty of the country. He took a pro-European stance, developing relations with the West and signing a cooperation accord with the European Union. The Kravchuk administration was the source for Ukraine's depressing reputation as a champion of corruption and missed opportunities as Kravchuk was cozy with Oligarchs and supported Pro Russian Forces adding to escalation of Ukrainian–Russian tensions and a policy of cooperation with Moscow.

Kravchuk refused to retain the common armed forces and currency inside the Commonwealth of Independent States. On 2 July 1993, the Ukrainian parliament approved the statement; 'Ukraine advocates the creation of an all-embracing international system of universal and all-European security and considers participation hereina basic component of its national security'.

Ukraine under Kravchuk welcomed the idea of NATO enlargement. As president, he never opposed the expansion of the Alliance or the possibility of a future Ukrainian membership to NATO. This was reflected in his disdain for military cooperation with Eurasian structures, such as the Tashkent CIS Collective Security Treaty, in favour of European security structures. He said that "the best guarantee to Ukraine's security would be membership to NATO." He repeated his support for an immediate Ukrainian membership to NATO in 1994.

Ukraine and Russia argued over many issues, including how the Soviet Navy's Black Sea Fleet should be divided. In May 1992, Russia's Supreme Soviet voted to declare the Soviet government's 1954 grant of Crimea to Ukraine an illegal act. Ukraine opposed this decision. The status of the Russian Black Sea Fleet's presence in Sevastopol and the Crimea was not resolved by a 20-year lease agreement until 1997, three years after Kravchuk left office.

Under Kravchuk's leadership, Ukraine's economy slumped as corruption linked to privatization of Soviet-era industry thrived. Ukraine's economic woes caused a decline in Kravchuk's political popularity, sparking governmental infighting. Political tension reached a point in the fall of 1993 that the then-prime minister, Leonid Kuchma, resigned. By 1994, in less than three years of Kravchuk's presidency, the country's GDP had shrunk by 40 percent.

Kravchuk ran for a second term as president in 1994 but was defeated by his former Prime Minister Leonid Kuchma, with his loss being attributed to the rampant graft and the stagnant economy.

Post-presidency

Soon after his defeat in 1994, Kravchuk joined the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (united) (SDPU(o)). He served as a member of the Verkhovna Rada from 1994 until 2006.

In February 2003, Oleksandr Moroz, the leader of Ukraine's Socialist Party, accused Kravchuk and other 300 public high-ranked officials of being members of the Freemasons.

During the 2004 presidential elections Kravchuk actively supported the candidacy of Viktor Yanukovych,Viktor Medvedchuk's Crisis
, Ukrainska Pravda (26 June 2007). and was a member of the Yanukovych team that negotiated with the opposition in the aftermath of that disputed election. In November 2004 he told the media that he was afraid that the resulting crisis would cause the disintegration of the country, intensifying movements for certain regions of Ukraine to join other countries.Leonid Kravchuk says, Viktor Yanukovych is not against talks with Yuschenko
, Radio Ukraine (29 November 2004).

On 25 September 2009, Kravchuk declared during an interview with the newspaper ''Den'' that he left SDPU(o) and became unaffiliated again. He explained this based on the fact that his former party decided to join the Bloc of Left and Center-left Forces to run for the 2010 presidential elections. He was indignant due to the fact that the political council of the party decided to accomplish that behind the closed doors in non-democratic order. He called it he"block as the artificial union without any perspectives". Kravchuk endorsed Yulia Tymoshenko