page_title: Viktor Yanukovych
section_title: Cultural and political image
hierarchical_section_title: Viktor Yanukovych / Cultural and political image
caption_attribution_description: English: Anti-presidential inscriptions in Luhansk Українська: Антипрезидентські надписи в Луганську уздовж 7-мої лінії, де В.Янукович мав відкрити трамвайну ділянку. Листопад 2011 р.
context_page_description: Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych is a Ukrainian politician who was elected as the fourth President of Ukraine in 2010. He was removed from the office in the 2014 Ukrainian revolution. He currently lives in exile in Russia.
  Yanukovych served as the governor of Donetsk Oblast, a province in eastern Ukraine, from 1997 to 2002. He was Prime Minister of Ukraine from 21 November 2002 to 7 December 2004 and from 28 December 2004 to 5 January 2005, under President Leonid Kuchma. Yanukovych first ran for president in 2004: he advanced to the runoff election and was initially declared the winner against former Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko. However, the election was fraught with allegations of electoral fraud and voter intimidation. This caused widespread citizen protests and Kyiv's Independence Square was occupied in what became known as the Orange Revolution. The Ukrainian Supreme Court nullified the runoff election and ordered a second runoff. Yanukovych lost this second election to Yushchenko. He served as Prime Minister for a second time from 4 August 2006 to 18 December 2007, under President Yushchenko.
context_section_description: Yanukovych was seen by opponents as representing the interests of Ukraine big business; they pointed out that his campaigns have benefited from backing by Ukrainian billionaire Rinat Akhmetov. Supporters of Yanukovych pointed out that Donetsk Oblast (province) secured unprecedented levels of investment during his governorship.
  Yanukovych drew strong support from Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the east of the country. Yanukovych is disliked and distrusted in western Ukraine. The People's Movement of Ukraine labeled his election on 10 February 2010 as "an attack by anti-Ukrainian forces in our state" and stated that "all possible legal means should be used to prevent the concentration of power in the hands of anti-state politician Yanukovych and his pro-Moscow retinue". On 16 February 2010, Yanukovych issued a statement that read: "I can say only one thing to those who anticipate that my presidency will weaken Ukraine – that will never happen." Yanukovych refers to himself as Ukrainian. Voters for Yanukovych in 2010 believed he would bring "stability and order". They blamed the Orange Revolution for creating broken promises, a dysfunctional economy and political chaos. During the 2010 presidential election campaign Yuriy Yakymenko, director of political research at the Razumkov Centre, stated: "I think he has not just changed on the surface but also in his ideas."
  In 2004, Yanukovych was seen as outgoing President Leonid Kuchma and Russian President Vladimir Putin's protégé. Although Kuchma in conversation with United States Ambassador to Ukraine John F. Tefft, in a document dated 2 February 2010 uncovered during the United States diplomatic cables leak, called the voters choice between Yanukovych and Yulia Tymoshenko during the second round of the 2010 presidential election as a choice between "bad and very bad" and praised (the candidate eliminated in the first round of the election) Arseniy Yatsenyuk instead. In another January 2009 cable (then) Ambassador of Ukraine to Russia Kostyantyn Gryshchenko stated that Putin had a low personal regard for Yanukovych. In another Wikileaks diplomatic cable, Volodymyr Horbulin, one of Ukraine's most respected policy strategists and former presidential advisor to then-President Viktor Yushchenko, told the United States Ambassador to Ukraine John E. Herbst in 2006 that Yanukovych's Party of Regions was partly composed of "pure criminals" and "criminal and anti-democracy figures."
  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 was, however, making efforts to speak Ukrainian better. He did admit 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 under this nickname in oppositional 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 he had been hit with 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
caption: Anti-presidential inscriptions concerning Yanukovych's criminal background (Luhansk, 2011)
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