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. He is currently serving a prison sentence in Georgia accused of abuse of power and organization of a grievous bodily injury against an opposition MP.
Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych is a former politician who served as the fourth president of Ukraine from 2010 until he was removed from office in the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, after months of protests against his presidency. From 2006 to 2007 he was the prime minister of Ukraine; he also served in this post from November 2002 to January 2005, with a short interruption in December 2004. He currently lives in exile in Russia, where he has lived since his removal from office in 2014.
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, with numerous parties in which often not a single party has a chance of gaining power alone, and parties must work with each other to form coalition governments.
The Party of Regions is a banned pro-Russian political party in Ukraine formed in late 1997 and then grew to be the biggest party in Ukraine between 2006 and 2014.
Petro Oleksiyovych Poroshenko is a Ukrainian businessman and politician who served as the fifth president of Ukraine from 2014 to 2019. Poroshenko served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2009 to 2010, and as the Minister of Trade and Economic Development in 2012. From 2007 until 2012, he headed the Council of Ukraine's National Bank. He was elected president on 25 May 2014, receiving 54.7% of the votes cast in the first round, thus winning outright and avoiding a run-off. During his presidency, Poroshenko led the country through the first phase of the war in Donbas, pushing the Russian separatist forces into the Donbas Region. He began the process of integration with the European Union by signing the European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement.
Eduard Yosipovich Gurvits is a Ukrainian politician who served as the 71st mayor of Odesa on two occasions; first from July 1994 to 26 May 1998, and then from 5 April 2005 to 6 November 2010. He also served as a People's Deputy of Ukraine on two occasions, from 27 March 1994 to 26 March 2006 and from 28 October 2012 to 26 October 2014.
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 politician and finance specialist who was Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine. 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, former head of the Security Service of Ukraine, former Minister of Finance, and former First Vice Prime Minister. According to Ukrainian and East European media Khoroshkovskyi is one of Ukraine's richest people.
Snap presidential elections held in Ukraine on 25 May 2014 resulted in Petro Poroshenko being elected President of Ukraine. Originally scheduled to take place on 29 March 2015, the date was changed following the 2014 Ukrainian revolution. Poroshenko won the elections with 54.7% of the votes, enough to win in a single round. His closest competitor, Yulia Tymoshenko, emerged with 12.81% of the votes. 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.
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 led to the 2014 Revolution of Dignity.
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 elected President Viktor Yanukovych and a return to the 2004 Constitution. It also led to the outbreak of the 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.
Mykola Leonidovich Skoryk is a Ukrainian politician who was Chairman of the Odesa Regional State Administration.
Gennadiy Leonidovich Trukhanov is the mayor of Odesa. He has been named as part of a Ukrainian crime syndicate who laundered money through London by buying multi-million pound properties in the city. In October 2022 he was charged in an ongoing corruption investigation concerning $18.5 million in municipal losses, and on 4 May 2023 he was detained on charges of embezzling $2.5 million in city funds. He was released the next day after paying $350,000 bail.
Movement of New Forces is a Ukrainian political party that was founded as the "Party of Harmonious Development" on February 11, 2015 and renamed in February 2017 by Mikheil Saakashvili.
Oleksandr Vasylyovych 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.
