Leonid Kuchma
| Leonid Kuchma Леонід Кучма |
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| 2nd President of Ukraine | |
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In office 19 July 1994 – 23 January 2005 |
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| Prime Minister |
Vitaliy Masol Yevhen Marchuk Pavlo Lazarenko Valeriy Pustovoitenko Viktor Yushchenko Anatoliy Kinakh Viktor Yanukovych |
| Preceded by | Leonid Kravchuk |
| Succeeded by | Viktor Yushchenko |
| 2nd Prime Minister of Ukraine | |
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In office 13 October 1992 – 22 September 1993 |
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| President | Leonid Kravchuk |
| Deputy |
Ihor Yukhnovskyi Yukhym Zvyahilsky |
| Preceded by | Valentyn Symonenko (Acting) |
| Succeeded by | Yukhym Zvyahilsky (Acting) |
| General Director of Yuzhmash | |
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In office November 1986 – 13 October 1992 |
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| Preceded by | Aleksandr Makarov |
| Succeeded by | Yuriy Alekseyev |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
9 August 1938 Chaikyne, Novhorod-Siverskyi Raion, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union |
| Political party |
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| Spouse(s) | Ludmila Talalayeva |
| Children | Olena Pinchuk |
| Alma mater | Dnipropetrovsk National University |
| Religion | Ukrainian Orthodoxy |
| Signature |  |
| People's Deputy of Ukraine | ||||
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| 1st convocation | ||||
| May 15, 1990 – May 10, 1994 | ||||
| Elected as: Communist Party (until August 1991), Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, District No.81 | ||||
| 2nd convocation | ||||
| May 10, 1994 – July 15, 1994 | ||||
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Elected as: Independent, Chernihiv Oblast, District No.448 |
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Leonid Danylovych Kuchma (Ukrainian: Леонід Данилович Кучма, 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 took office after winning the 1994 presidential election against his rival, incumbent Leonid Kravchuk. Kuchma won re-election for an additional five-year term in 1999.
His presidency was surrounded by numerous corruption scandals and the lessening of media freedoms. 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.
On his watch 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.
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.
Since July 2014, Kuchma has been Ukraine's representative at the semi-official peace talks regarding the ongoing War in Donbass.
Leonid Kuchma was born in the village of Chaikine in rural Chernihiv Oblast. His father Danylo Prokopovych Kuchma (1901–1942) was wounded in World War II and eventually died of his wounds in the field hospital #756 (near the village of Novoselytsia) when Leonid was four. His mother Paraska Trokhymivna Kuchma worked at a kolhoz. Kuchma attended the Kostobobrove general education school in the neighboring Semenivka Raion. Later he enrolled in Dnipropetrovsk National University and graduated in 1960 with a degree in mechanical engineering (majoring in aerospace engineering). The same year he joined the Communist Party of Soviet Union. Kuchma is a candidate of technical sciences.
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