According to reports, Putin is trying to install Victor Yanukovych as Ukraine’s next president, despite President Zelensky’s pledge to continue battling Russia.
What is Viktor Yanukovych’s background?
Former President Viktor Yanukovych took office in 2010 but was deposed in 2014 after violent protests erupted across the country. Protests against the former president erupted after he declined to sign a trade agreement with the European Union (EU) in order to strengthen ties with Russia.
Yanukovych was backed by Putin’s dictatorship in an unsuccessful attempt to reinstall him in office, and he fled east from Kyiv to Kharkiv before heading to Russia.
He was also the country’s prime minister from 2006 to 2007 and for a brief period before to 2005. From 1997 until 2002, he was the governor of the Donetsk Oblast in eastern Ukraine.
In 2004, he ran for president for the first time in a tumultuous race marred by suspicions of fraud. The Orange Revolution erupted after the Ukraine Supreme Court ruled that the election results were invalid and that new polls be held. In the second election, Yanukovych was defeated by Yushchenko.
What was the “Euromaidan” and how did it relate to Yanukovych?
Protests erupted in November 2013 in Kyiv’s Independence Square, when Yanukovych failed to sign the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, despite demonstrators’ demands for Yanukovych’s resignation.
In Ukraine, demonstrators clashed brutally with police, with the biggest rally taking place in Kyiv’s Maidan (central plaza). The protests began with the hashtag “Euromaidan” on Twitter, and they mostly took place in central Kyiv’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti, which became a rallying point for anti-Yanukovych protesters.
Yanukovych fled the nation, and protesters gained control of the presidential administration and his private home.
Who took Yanukovych’s place?
Yanukovych departed the country when Oleksandr Turchynov and then Petro Poroshenko took power.
Zelensky, a renowned TV celebrity and comedian at the time, came to power in 2019, winning the elections. His anti-Russia position, on the other hand, did not sit well with Putin, who began pressing for NATO membership.
