The History Shaping the Modern State of Ukraine

Since the fall of Soviet communism in 1991, Ukraine has experienced a mix of national political figures who have captured worldly attention upon holding the most important governmental posts while often colliding with opposition figures particularly during the past three election cycles. Listed in sequential order of political appointment but with overlapping importance among them, includes Leonid Kuchma, the first full term president from 1994-2004, Viktor Yuschenko from 2005-2009, the current president Viktor Yanukovych, and the never elected but often influential Yulia Timoshenko who served once as prime minister.

The notion of a simple and orderly system of government can vaguely be used to convey what has transpired for each of these national leaders during the post Soviet phase of Ukrainian history. What's been at stake is an admittedly vicious challenge to establish a functional system within a former Soviet controlled style of rule which wreaked drastic hardship upon it's people, resources and infrastructure. Thus an era of unaccountable policy ridden with devious acts and efforts of corrective action has been ongoing and troublesome.

To gain an understanding of what's occurred up to the current state of popular upheaval as many of the citizens have taken to the streets protesting the recent actions of President Yanukovych, it's appropriate to look at how these aforementioned individuals have effected the nation. To start, the career mobility of Yulia Tymoshenko provides a microcosmic portrayal of how this once influential oligarch figure worth several hundred millions of dollars, went from a natural gas industrialist to a spotlight politician. Her more recent drastic coupe de grace however that spurred major global attention involved the controversial prison sentence handed to her in 2006 under the current presidency of Yanacuvyk.

Yulia Tymoshenko married at the age of 19 to Olesksander, a man of affluent upbringing whose father provided lucrative inroads for the couple to build their careers. Things began rather prosperously for them both but the relationship faltered and left the two to endure long breakups that never healed. But Yulia and others found her to be an effective and persuasive personality with stunning looks which aptly complimented her business endeavors early on. After having worked with her husband for a period of time in their small family funded business, Yulia was asked to join a small gasoline monopoly as a top officer.

Building upon her experience, the new opportunity exposed her to greater networks with other powerful Ukrainian figures who expressed interest in facilitating her corporate ascension. She became closely involved in matters of contracts and negotiations with President Kuchma, who served two terms shortly after Ukraine pronounced it’s independence. After several years, Yulia Tymoshenko's gasoline business interests shifted to a larger opportunity when she was appointed a lead role in what later was revealed to be an illegitimate company of immense power named United Energy Systems.

Her political career began to take form in 1996 with popular appeal first from an alliance with Kuchma as a member of parliament before she defected to the major opposition party. In 1999 Kuchma with Viktor Yuschenko as prime minister named Timoshenko as the country’s energy secretary. Despite doing nothing to improve the transparency of Ukraine's resource management her tenure did help solve many budgetary dilemmas. But then United Energy was found guilty in illegally channeling much of the country’s finances and paying exorbitant sums to government officials for contract bids.

A hoopla of national scrutiny resulted over the incident, which was as much to do with Kuchma initiating allegations of wrongdoing to protect himself rather than seeking justice from activities that were at the time given little notice from the powers that be. The situation resulted in Timoshenko serving three months in prison before being acquitted of charges.

The legacy left behind for the Kuchma presidential office was tainted in frequent corruption including government infiltrations with organized crime. Such seemed the way for Ukraine following it's independence. A system of mega millionaire oligarchs leveraged their networks of political connections, crony relationships, intimidating influence as well as some hard work and ethically lax wisdom to capture the lion’s share of wealth to be had upon communism’s fall.

Analogies of this first decade of post Soviet-Ukrainian as was the case on a larger scale in Russia was of an eastern European free for all where greed, ambition and the right amount of luck could produce a fortune. The gains in such stories were enormous but as quickly as they came, they largely vanished. After several years of this sudden exploitation of natural energy, in 1998 Ukraine's economy as did Russia's, took a drastic downfall. The country suffered and stories of western investors like Long Term Capital Management lost billions of dollars. The dire situation nonetheless harnessed hopes that capitalism could soon be sustainable which led officials from the United States and the IMF to initiate a rehabilitation plan consisting of billions of dollars in financial support.

The impression upon many in the nation began to clamor for a separation from the long history of Soviet-Russian ties which had dominated the Ukrainian state under Lenin, Stalin and beyond. Upon the end of the previous decade of Kuchma governance, the ideological divide within this second largest European nation grew even deeper with people demanding a strong Ukrainian approach to life. Many in the country advocated a distinct national identity via speaking Ukrainian, claiming sovereignty and making gestures towards relations with western Europe.

The contrary sentiment held by many in the east was to seek continuous long term cooperation with Russia by deemphasizing the nationalist Ukrainian identity in favor of speaking the Russian dialect and accepting concessions from it's powerful eastern neighbor. Marking the end of Kuchma's second term was evidence that he ordered the killing of an opposition journalist who was later discovered dead in a Kiev forest.

For those adamant upon a better country, Viktor Yuschenko stood as a gifted, charismatic politician whose ideology maintained the position of Ukrainian nationalism. His campaign during the 2004 elections seemed bent upon striking a contrast from years of political egregiousness. His supporters sought a release from the unstable influence of Russia and the corollary endemics that the eastern power tended to plague upon Ukraine such as having to comply with demands in return for favorable trade agreements. Yuschenko thus began to promote the goal of seeking a greater relationship with Western Europe similar to that of other former eastern bloc countries like Czechoslovakia, Poland, Latvia and Estonia. This would in effect offer a transition away from the country's rampant class disparity.

Yuschenko's major opposition in the 2004 election was Viktor Yanukovych who shared a similar approach for national leadership as the morally brandished, exiting president. Yanukovych had occupied the prime minister position since 2002 enabling him to draw major support from Kuchma as well as Russian president Vladimir Putin. Yanukovych, like Kuchma, had been from a town within the eastern provence of Donetsk which is described as a brutish mining area where tough street smarts are how one manages to survive. So with the influential backing of such empowered individuals and support from much of the eastern half of the country, one would think that Yanukovych stood a rather sanguine position upon entering the elections.

Well exit polls showed that a majority of votes had gone to Yuschenko and popular belief all but assured him of victory. Yet when the official results came back, the numbers indicated that Yanukovych had won. Public outcry erupted across the country particularly in the west and the centrally located capital of Kiev. Protesters demanded a recount. This major outbreak that unfolded was what became known as the Orange Revolution named for the official party colors of Yuschenko's candidacy.

Reelections were held. This time with legitimate monitoring authorities to prevent what had seemed to have likely been another example of Kuchma’s scrupulous political ploy at work in rigging the elections in favor of Yanokyvick. Upon the reelection, victory in deed went to Yuschenko.

His message of greater relations with the West, the restoration of Ukrainian traditions and becoming independent of heavy Russian influence along with overall improvements for the country found listening ears among the people.

Yuschenko appointed Timoshenko to be prime minister who had left a stunning impression upon the Ukraine population with her rhetoric proclaiming the injustice done to Yushenko during the Orange Revolution. Also to an extreme degree Timoshenko had completely remade her appearance during the 2004 campaign where she dyed her natural brown hair to a golden blonde and dispelled any prior image of Russian affiliation by speaking purely Ukrainian and advocating a strong nationalist sentiment.

But her popularity as prime minister only presented an overshadowing effect upon the actions of president that Yuschenko was trying to bring to fruition early in his term. He decided to release her as Prime Minister in late 2005. Timoshenko though wouldn’t back down in defeat. She soon rallied her parliamentary chops and began an opposition electoral bloc which managed to establish significant political support from those members not fully supportive of Yuschenko.

As it turned out, Yuschenko proved to be very ineffective. Rather than affecting much of the conditions really in need of improvement like balancing the budget, he largely pursued a frivolous movement of honoring Ukrainian identity through a nationwide awareness movement that glorified elements the nation's history. Having distanced himself from Russia only hindered the situation as the import prices charged by the big eastern power were drastically increased as a consequence of seeking less diplomatic involvement.

Efforts to bring Ukraine into the full productive presence of the EU never transpired as was hoped and a litany of misfortunes occurred during his term. One particular bad occurrence was his decision to shut off the natural gas shipments to Poland and Bulgaria through the Ukrainian pipe lines which for two weeks left portions of their population freezing during the harsh winter.

Upon the 2009 election campaign, Yuschenko stood no chance at winning reelection. Having become reunited in his capricious political relationship with Timoshenko who was reappointed to the position of prime minister in 2007, began to cast a favorable bid for her to succeed as the viable presidential candidate. She retained the ardent pro-Ukrainian rhetoric, galvanizing the sentiment that many of the country had been compelled to believe in during the 2004 Yuschenko victory. The notion still held wide acceptance in the hope for a closer European like state binding it to the economic and political principals of the west. Poland, as Ukraine ‘s western neighbor, had joined the EU in 2008. Perhaps with power instilled in a similar visionary yet capable president as Yuschenko had once promised to be, could feasibly lead the country in the direction that many aspired to see.

Yanukovych on the other hand plat-formed on a campaign promoting ‘Ukraine for the People‘. He displayed ubiquitous banners throughout the country particularly in his primary eastern base of support. Similarly to Putin’s efforts during the fraudulently botched 2004 contest, Russian support stood emphatically behind Yanukovych. Yet Timoshenko captivated her supporters and the rest of the country with her attractiveness, authentic looking, dyed hair and traditional Ukrainian language which was known to have been rehearsed as a selling point to capture the previous Yuschenko nationalist support base.

The pre-election process continued. In Donetsk, the eastern most populated province of Ukraine, Timoshenko had called in cooperation from the president of nearby Georgia to provide an assembly of election monitors. They were controversially assigned to help ensure for Timoshenko that while President Yuschenko was still in office a repeat of the debacle from 2004 wasn’t repeated. Furthermore, in Kiev a major effort was quickly put in place at a ballot printing facility to shuffle managers in efforts to derail any potential for a recently orchestrated corruption deal from either Yanukovych or Timoshenko’s party from rigging the polling process.

In November the process prevailed largely unperturbed of any distractions. It was close and Yanukovych squeaked out a victory by a margin of about 3%. He took office in January occupying the white house building in the central political district of Kiev. The objectives since then have focused predominately on a middle ground stance of placating both ideological divisions of the country. He seemed on course for maintaining favor from both those on the east while assuaging the western faction who lament the Soviet intervention that has never fulling ceased to exercise a heavy hand on Ukraine.

The major pro-western effort has been to coordinate a trade pact with the European Union that would eliminate customs tariffs on exports potentially saving the nation about $750 million a year on it’s exports to Europe. This had been a plan frequently pursued by Yushenko but never properly orchestrated. Now Yanukovych had taken the responsibility of enabling this seemingly lucrative and forward thinking agenda to the forefront with close prospects of it being officially finalized after a solid year of European negotiations. The agreement also would bring several millions of dollars a year in development money for Ukraine. The free trade pact though also would open the domestic market to a flood of European produced goods which many opponents of the plan allege will out weigh any of the benefits reaped in partnering with the conglomerate of European powers.

But for many of those supportive of the initiative, it represents a future that would remove the nation from the disillusional ways of Russian political governing. The pact could be a first step in Ukraine positioning itself into joining the greater EU as Czechoslovakia, Estonia, and Latvia have done. However to realize that major step would take much more diplomatic involvement and a record of evidence that Ukraine is a country committed to the long term democratic and capital policies of the EU.

Also the importance of gas supplies which the European nations of Poland, Bulgaria, Slovenia and others rely upon would promise an assurance of cooperation for that energy to run unhindered through the Ukrainian pipelines from it’s principal source of Russia. This latter reason is one why Russia is determined to prevent a Ukrainian-EU cooperation as it would further isolate the major nation in it’s less than quasi cooperative relationship with the rest of the western world.

          An In Depth History of the Controversial State of Ukraine

          Click to learn a bit more about the national history

          My Anectdotal Story about Nearly Traveling to Ukraine


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