Mikheil Saakashvili is a Georgian and Ukrainian politician and jurist. He was the third president of Georgia for two consecutive terms from 25 January 2004 to 17 November 2013. From May 2015 until November 2016,Saakashvili was the governor of Ukraine's Odesa Oblast. He is the founder and former chairman of the United National Movement party. Saakashvili heads the executive committee of Ukraine's National Reform Council since 7 May 2020. In 2021 he began serving a six-year prison sentence in Georgia on charges of abuse of power and organization of an assault occasioning grievous bodily harm against an opposition lawmaker,Valery Gelashvili.
Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych is a former Ukrainian politician who served as the fourth president of Ukraine from 2010 to 2014. He also served as the prime minister of Ukraine several times between 2002 and 2007 and was a member of the Verkhovna Rada from 2006 to 2010. A member of the pro-Russian Party of Regions,Yanukovych provoked mass protests —the Euromaidan —against his rejection of closer integration with the European Union and was removed from the presidency by the Ukrainian parliament in 2014,at the time neighboring Russia started to annex Ukrainian Crimea and started the Russo-Ukrainian War. Since then,he has lived in exile in Russia.
Elections in Ukraine are held to choose the president,Verkhovna Rada (legislature),and local governments. Referendums may be held on special occasions. Ukraine has a multi-party system,often no single party has a chance of gaining power alone,and parties must work with each other to form coalition governments.
Yuriy Vitaliyovych Lutsenko is a Ukrainian politician,Ukrainian Interior Minister and member in the Armed Forces of Ukraine during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The Party of Regions is a banned pro-Russian political party in Ukraine formed in late 1997 that became the largest party in Ukraine between 2006 and 2014.
Petro Oleksiiovych Poroshenko is a Ukrainian oligarch and politician who served as the fifth president of Ukraine from 2014 to 2019.
Arseniy Petrovych Yatsenyuk is a Ukrainian politician,economist and lawyer who served two terms as Prime Minister of Ukraine –from 27 February 2014 to 27 November 2014 and from 27 November 2014 to 14 April 2016. He was the youngest foreign affairs minister in Ukraine's history.
Parliamentary elections were held in Ukraine on 28 October 2012. Because of various reasons,including the "impossibility of announcing election results" various by-elections have taken place since. Hence,several constituencies have been left unrepresented at various times.
Serhiy Leonidovych Tihipko is a Ukrainian businessman and politician who was Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine. After founding the TAS Group conglomerate in 1998,Tihipko was Minister of Economics in 2000 and subsequently served as Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine from 2002 to 2004. He ran unsuccessfully for President of Ukraine in the 2010 presidential election and participated in the 2014 presidential election,in which he placed fifth with 5.23 percent of the vote. Tihipko is also former Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Social Policy.
Mykola Yanovych Azarov is a Ukrainian politician who was the Prime Minister of Ukraine from 11 March 2010 to 27 January 2014. He was the First Vice Prime Minister and Finance Minister from 2002 to 2005 and again from 2006 to 2007. Azarov also served ex officio as an acting prime minister in the First Yanukovych Government when Viktor Yanukovych ran for president at first and then upon the resignation of his government.
Valeriy Ivanovych Khoroshkovskyi is a Ukrainian businessman and politician who served as head of the Security Service of Ukraine from 2010 to 2012 and as Minister of Finance and First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine briefly in 2012. According to Ukrainian and East European media Khoroshkovskyi is one of Ukraine's richest people.
Snap presidential elections were held in Ukraine on 25 May 2014 and resulted in Petro Poroshenko being elected President of Ukraine. Originally scheduled to take place on 29 March 2015,the date was brought forward following the 2014 Ukrainian revolution. Poroshenko won the elections with 55% of the vote,enough to win in a single round. His closest competitor,Yulia Tymoshenko,received 13% of the vote. The Central Election Commission reported voter turnout over 60%,excluding the regions not under government control. Since Poroshenko obtained an absolute majority in the first round,a run-off second ballot was unnecessary.
The second Azarov government was the government of Ukraine from 24 December 2012 to 28 January 2014. It was dissolved amidst the Euromaidan protests. The ministers (except Prime Minister Mykola Azarov who was replaced by Deputy Prime Minister Serhiy Arbuzov,continued briefly as a caretaker government. On 27 February 2014 Ukraine's parliament approved a resolution to formally dismiss the government.
Oleksandr Yefremov or Aleksandr Efremov is a Ukrainian former parliamentarian and politician. A former governor of the Luhansk Oblast,from 2010 until 2014 he was Party of Regions's faction leader in the Verkhovna Rada. On 14 February 2015 Yefremov was detained on suspicion of "abuse of power under aggravating circumstances". This arrest was effectively ended when his bail expired on 1 November 2015. Yefremov was again detained on 30 July 2016 on suspicion of violation of Ukraine's territorial integrity by helping to create the Luhansk People's Republic and misappropriation of property. He was released from prison pending investigation in 2019. Shortly after the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine Yefremov moved to Moscow,Russia where he now resides.
Euromaidan,or the Maidan Uprising,was a wave of demonstrations and civil unrest in Ukraine,which began on 21 November 2013 with large protests in Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kyiv. The protests were sparked by President Viktor Yanukovych's sudden decision not to sign the European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement,instead choosing closer ties to Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union. Ukraine's parliament had overwhelmingly approved of finalizing the Agreement with the EU,but Russia had put pressure on Ukraine to reject it. The scope of the protests widened,with calls for the resignation of Yanukovych and the Azarov government. Protesters opposed what they saw as widespread government corruption,abuse of power,human rights violations,and the influence of oligarchs. Transparency International named Yanukovych as the top example of corruption in the world. The violent dispersal of protesters on 30 November caused further anger. Euromaidan was the largest democratic mass movement in Europe since 1989 and led to the 2014 Revolution of Dignity.
Revival is a political party in Ukraine,established in its current form in June 2015. Its predecessor had been founded by Heorhiy Kirpa in 2004.
The Revolution of Dignity,also known as the Maidan Revolution or the Ukrainian Revolution,took place in Ukraine in February 2014 at the end of the Euromaidan protests,when deadly clashes between protesters and state forces in the capital Kyiv culminated in the ousting of President Viktor Yanukovych,the return to the 2004 Constitution of Ukraine,and the outbreak of the 2014 Russo-Ukrainian War.
Ihor Petrovych Palytsia is a Ukrainian businessman and politician. From May 2014 until May 2015 he worked as Governor of Odesa Oblast. In November 2015 Palytsia was elected chairman of the Volyn Oblast regional parliament. In the July 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election Palytsia won a seat as an independent candidate. In parliament he joined the For the Future faction.
The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of the 8th convocation was a convocation of the legislative branch of the Verkhovna Rada,Ukraine's unicameral parliament. The 8th convocation met at the Verkhovna Rada building in Kyiv,having begun its term on 27 November 2014 following the last session of the 7th Verkhovna Rada. Its five-year term came to an end on July 24,2019,marking the end of its tenth session.
Oleksandr Vasyliovych Starukh is a Ukrainian historian and politician. On 18 December 2020 he was appointed as Governor of Zaporizhzhia Oblast. He had previously been Governor of Zaporizhzhia Oblast from 2008 to 2010. On 24 January 2023,he was removed from his position as Governor.
