Viktor Yanukovych languages spoken, written or signed Ukrainian
Yanukovych is not known as a great speaker. His native language is Russian, similar to a majority of the population of his power-base and native Eastern Ukraine. He, however, made efforts to speak better Ukrainian. He admitted in March 2012 that it was a problem for him in 2002 to speak Ukrainian. He has made some blunders, however, in Ukrainian since then. For the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election, Yanukovych wrote an autobiography for the Central Election Commission, in which he misspelled his academic degree. Thereafter, he came to be widely referred to with this nickname in opposition media and opponents' speeches. His autobiographic resume of 90 words contains 12 major spelling and grammatical errors. Opponents of Yanukovych made fun of this misspelling and his criminal convictions during the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election campaign and the incident during the campaign (September 2004) in Ivano-Frankivsk when Yanukovych was rushed to hospital after being hit by an egg (while government officials claimed he was hit by a brick) was a source of ridicule.Other famous blunders by Yanukovych are his claim that Anton Chekhov was "a Ukrainian poet" in January 2010, forgetting on 6 January 2011 to congratulate the Greek-Catholic Ukrainian community, which, along with the rest of the Ukrainian people, celebrates Christmas that day, and confusing Kosovo with Serbia and Montenegro, and North Ossetia with South Ossetia in March 2010. Over the years, Yanukovych's proficiency in the Ukrainian language has noticeably improved (in a form filled in for the 2004 election he claimed to be fluent in Ukrainian, yet made in that very form a series of egregious mistakes, inter alia spelling his own wife's patronym incorrectly).Yanukovych stated in November 2009 that he respects all Ukrainian politicians. "I have never offended anyone. This is my rule of politics." In spite of this claim, on 22 September 2007, during the 2007 Ukrainian parliamentary election campaign, while delivering a speech in Vinnytsia, he compared Yulia Tymoshenko's performance as Prime Minister to "a cow on ice", ("Вона прем'єр-міністр, як корова на льду....", "She is a prime minister like a cow on ice") most likely referring to her skills and professionalism as a prime minister.
Other cases of strong colloquialisms used by Yanukovych include the incident when he called former president Viktor Yushchenko "a coward and a babbler", as well as a speech in Donetsk during the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election, when he referred to the electorate of his opponent Yushchenko as "goats that make our lives difficult" ("эти козлы, которые нам мешают жить"). Later, during TV debates with Yushchenko he explained, "I called the traitors goats. According to the Bible, the goat is a traitor, and there are also rams, sheep." After his February 2014 escape to Russia, during his 28 February press conference in Rostov-on-Don, Yanukovych said, "Ukraine is our strategic partner" (misspeaking and confusing Ukraine with Russia). During the same press conference he also broke a pen in an emotional outburst, while trying to apologize to the Ukrainian people.Opinion polls showed that Yanukovych's popularity sank after his election as president in 2010, with polls giving him from 13% to 20% of the votes if a presidential election were to be held in 2012 (in 2010 he received 35.8% of the vote in the first round of that election.) A public opinion poll taken by Sociological group "RATING" gave him 25.1% of the votes in an imaginary February 2013 presidential election.The Ambassador of the European Union to Ukraine, José Manuel Pinto Teixeira, stated during an April 2012 interview with Korrespondent that Yanukovych's presidency "fell short of expectations".In an overview piece in March 2013, The Ukrainian Week claimed that Yanukovych had "failed to meet" his 2010 election promises.
linguistic abilities language proficiency language command