1. Viktor Yushchenko aimed to orient Ukraine towards the West, European Union, and NATO.
57 Facts About Viktor Yushchenko
1. 2.
Viktor Yushchenko suffered disfigurement as a result of the poisoning, but survived.
3.
Viktor Yushchenko's influence declined soon after assuming the presidency, especially after falling out with his prime minister and leading political ally Yulia Tymoshenko, as did his and his party's popularity and electoral standing.
4.
Viktor Yushchenko again led Our Ukraine in the 2012 parliamentary election, but they failed to win representation.
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Viktor Yushchenko was born on 23 February 1954, in Khoruzhivka, Sumy Oblast, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union, into a family of teachers.
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Viktor Yushchenko's father survived the ordeal, and after returning home taught English at a local school.
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Viktor Yushchenko graduated from the Ternopil Finance and Economics Institute in 1975.
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Viktor Yushchenko began work as an accountant, as a deputy to the chief accountant in a kolkhoz.
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In December 1999, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma unexpectedly nominated Viktor Yushchenko to be the prime minister after the parliament failed by one vote to ratify the previous candidate, Valeriy Pustovoytenko.
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In 2002, Viktor Yushchenko became the leader of the Our Ukraine political coalition, which received a plurality of seats in the year's parliamentary election.
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Since then, Viktor Yushchenko has remained the leader and public face of the Our Ukraine parliamentary faction.
12.
Viktor Yushchenko was widely regarded as the moderate political leader of the anti-Kuchma opposition, since other opposition parties were less influential and had fewer seats in parliament.
13.
In 2004, as Kuchma's term came to an end, Viktor Yushchenko announced his candidacy for president as an independent.
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Supporters of Viktor Yushchenko were organized in the "Syla Narodu" electoral coalition, which he and his political allies led, with the Our Ukraine coalition as the main constituent force.
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Viktor Yushchenko built his campaign on face-to-face communication with voters, since the government prevented most major TV channels from providing equal coverage to candidates.
16.
Meanwhile, his rival, Yanukovych, frequently appeared in the news and even accused Viktor Yushchenko, whose father was a Red Army soldier imprisoned at Auschwitz, of being "a Nazi," even though Viktor Yushchenko actively reached out to the Jewish community in Ukraine and his mother is said to have risked her life by hiding three Jewish girls for one and a half years during the Second World War.
17.
Viktor Yushchenko was flown to Vienna's Rudolfinerhaus clinic for treatment and diagnosed with acute pancreatitis, accompanied by interstitial edematous abnormalities, due to a serious viral infection and chemical substances that are not normally found in food products.
18.
Viktor Yushchenko claimed that he had been poisoned by government agents.
19.
British toxicologist Professor John Henry of St Mary's Hospital in London declared the abnormalities in Viktor Yushchenko's face were due to chloracne, which results from dioxin poisoning.
20.
Since 2005, Viktor Yushchenko has been treated by a team of doctors led by Professor Jean Saurat at the University of Geneva Hospital.
21.
Viktor Yushchenko himself implicated Davyd Zhvania, the godfather of one of his children, of involvement in his dioxin poisoning.
22.
On 27 September 2009, Viktor Yushchenko said in an interview aired on Channel 1+1 that the testimony of three men who were at a dinner in 2004 at which he believes he was poisoned is crucial to finishing the investigation, and he claimed these men were in Russia.
23.
Viktor Yushchenko appointed Tymoshenko as prime minister and the appointment was ratified by parliament.
24.
Some accused Viktor Yushchenko of attempting to gain political capital from the event, with his appearance on stage at the end criticised as 'undignified' by certain commentators.
25.
On 8 September 2005, Viktor Yushchenko fired his government, led by Tymoshenko, after resignations and claims of corruption.
26.
On 2 April 2007, Viktor Yushchenko signed an order to dissolve the parliament and call early elections.
27.
Viktor Yushchenko's detractors argued that he was attempting to usurp the functions of the Constitutional Court by claiming constitutional violations by the parliament as a pretext for his action.
28.
In May 2007, Viktor Yushchenko illegally dismissed three members of Ukraine's Constitutional Court, thus preventing the court from ruling on the constitutionality of his decree dismissing Ukraine's parliament.
29.
Viktor Yushchenko again tried to dissolve the parliament on 9 October 2008 by announcing parliamentary elections to be held on 7 December.
30.
Viktor Yushchenko claimed that his conflicts with Tymoshenko are not due to personal differences, but to the incompleteness of the constitutional reforms of 2004.
31.
On 10 November 2009, Viktor Yushchenko was nominated for a second term as president, with the election to be held on 17 January 2010.
32.
Viktor Yushchenko's result became the worst result for any sitting president.
33.
Viktor Yushchenko stated that he wanted to continue to defend democracy in Ukraine and that he wanted to return to the presidency.
34.
On 22 January 2010, as outgoing President, Viktor Yushchenko officially rehabilitated one of Ukraine's most controversial figures from the era of World War II, the ultranationalist leader Stepan Bandera, awarding him the title of Hero of Ukraine.
35.
Viktor Yushchenko attributed his low popularity ratings to his adherence to his principles.
36.
Viktor Yushchenko removed the Kharkiv and Dniproptrovsk governors, who had expressed support for Tymoshenko and had refused to provide administrative resources for Yanukovych's campaign.
37.
On 10 March 2010, Viktor Yushchenko indicated his future plans would largely depend on Yanukovych's performance.
38.
Viktor Yushchenko testified against his former ally Tymoshenko during her trial over a 2009 natural gas treaty she brokered with Russia; a trial he called "a normal judicial process".
39.
Viktor Yushchenko's view differed from that of the European Union's foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who said in a statement the Tymoshenko verdict showed justice was being applied "selectively in politically motivated prosecutions".
40.
Late September 2011 Viktor Yushchenko stated he intended to run for parliament on an Our Ukraine party ticket at the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary elections.
41.
Mid-February 2012 Viktor Yushchenko stated he was ready to take part in this election on a list of the united opposition, but not in a majority constituency.
42.
In February 2013 Viktor Yushchenko intended to be a candidate during the next presidential election.
43.
Viktor Yushchenko is so obsessed with this that he hasn't understood power balance.
44.
Viktor Yushchenko himself did not stand as a candidate in these elections.
45.
Viktor Yushchenko supported President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's handling of the situation and opposed giving up territory to end the war, saying that it would give Vladimir Putin "five or seven years to get stronger and then start this misery again".
46.
On 31 March 2009, in his address to the nation before Parliament, Viktor Yushchenko proposed sweeping government reform changes and an economic and social plan to ameliorate current economic conditions in Ukraine and apparently to respond to standing structural problems in Ukraine's political system.
47.
The proposal, which Viktor Yushchenko called a 'next big step forward for fairness and prosperity in Ukraine' included the following proposals:.
48.
Viktor Yushchenko thinks that "the Russia-Georgia war of August 2008 poses a threat that European leaders still haven't addressed".
49.
Viktor Yushchenko has called for a demarcation of borders between Russia and Ukraine, which has been delayed by Russia since Ukraine won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
50.
Viktor Yushchenko stated "Russia is a friendly country and that it would be a great mistake for Ukraine to lose these relations or to slow down their development; I believe that there will appear politicians in Russia, who will respect the rights of all neighbors, including Ukraine".
51.
Viktor Yushchenko considers an open list of candidates for parliamentary elections as one of the conditions for eradicating corruption.
52.
On 2 March 2022, Viktor Yushchenko described Russia after its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 as "the Moscow junta and the Russian fascist regime".
53.
In 1977, Viktor Yushchenko married Svitlana Ivanivna Kolesnyk, with whom he has two children and three grandchildren:.
54.
Viktor Yushchenko has been criticized for using many words of Russian origin when speaking Ukrainian.
55.
Viktor Yushchenko is keen on painting, collects antiques, folk artifacts, and Ukrainian national dress, and restores objects of Trypillya culture.
56.
Viktor Yushchenko is often accused of being unable to form a unified team without infighting.
57.
Viktor Yushchenko was named "Man of the Year 2004" by Wprost and included in the 2005 Time 100, an annual list of Time 100 most influential people in the world.