Viktor Yushchenko

Viktor's mother, Varvara Tymofiyovna Yushchenko (1918–2005), taught physics and mathematics at the same school.

The Sumy Oblast region where he was born is predominantly Ukrainian-speaking, and this differentiated him in later life from his political counterparts, for whom Russian was the mother tongue.

His father, Andriy Andriyovych Yushchenko (1919–1992) fought in the Second World War, was captured by German forces and imprisoned as a POW in a series of concentration camps in the German Reich, including Auschwitz-Birkenau.

His father survived the ordeal, and after returning home taught English at a local school.

Viktor Andriyovych Yushchenko (Віктор Андрійович Ющенко, ; born 23 February 1954) is a Ukrainian politician who was the third president of Ukraine from 23 January 2005 to 25 February 2010.

He aimed to orient Ukraine towards the West, towards the European Union and NATO.

Yushchenko's first career was in the banking industry.

Yushchenko was born on 23 February 1954, in Khoruzhivka, Sumy Oblast, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union, into a family of teachers.

Yushchenko graduated from the Ternopil Finance and Economics Institute in 1975.

He began work as an accountant, as a deputy to the chief accountant in a kolkhoz.

From 1975 to 1976, he served as a conscript in the Transcaucasian Military District on the Soviet–Turkish border.

In 1976, Yushchenko began a career in banking.

In 1983, he became the Deputy Director for Agricultural Credit at the Ukrainian Republican Office of the Soviet Union State Bank.

From 1990 to 1993, he worked as vice-chairman and first vice-chairman of the JSC Agroindustrial Bank Ukraina.

In 1993, he became governor of the National Bank of Ukraine, presiding over their response to hyperinflation and the introduction of a national currency.

In 1993, he was appointed Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (Ukraine's central bank).

In 1997, Verkhovna Rada, the parliament of Ukraine, re-appointed him.

As a central banker, Yushchenko played an important part in the creation of Ukraine's national currency, the hryvnia, and the establishment of a modern regulatory system for commercial banking.

He also successfully overcame a debilitating wave of hyper-inflation that hit the country—he brought inflation down from more than 10,000 percent to less than 10 percent—and managed to defend the value of the currency following the 1998 Russian financial crisis.

In 1998, he wrote a thesis entitled "The Development of Supply and Demand of Money in Ukraine" and defended it in the Ukrainian Academy of Banking.

He thereby earned a doctorate in economics.

From 1999 to 2001 he was prime minister under President Leonid Kuchma.

In December 1999, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma unexpectedly nominated Yushchenko to be the prime minister after the parliament failed by one vote to ratify the previous candidate, Valeriy Pustovoytenko.

Ukraine's economy improved during Yushchenko's cabinet service.

However, his government, particularly Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, soon became embroiled in a confrontation with influential leaders of the coal mining and natural gas industries.

The conflict resulted in a no-confidence vote by the parliament on 26 April 2001, orchestrated by the Communist Party of Ukraine, who opposed Yushchenko's economic policies, and by centrist groups associated with the country's powerful "oligarchs."

The vote passed 263 to 187 and resulted in Yushchenko's removal from office.

After his dismissal as prime minister, Yushchenko went into opposition to President Kuchma and founded Our Ukraine Bloc, which at the 2002 parliamentary election became Ukraine's most popular political force.

In 2002, Yushchenko became the leader of the Our Ukraine (Nasha Ukrayina) political coalition, which received a plurality of seats in the year's parliamentary election.

However, the number of seats won was not a majority, and efforts to form a majority coalition with other opposition parties failed.

Since then, Yushchenko has remained the leader and public face of the Our Ukraine parliamentary faction.

As an informal leader of the Ukrainian opposition coalition, he was one of the two main candidates in the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election, the other being Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych.

During the election campaign in late 2004, Yushchenko became the victim of an assassination attempt when he was poisoned with dioxin.

He suffered disfigurement as a result of the poisoning, but survived.

The runoff election in November 2004, won by Yanukovych, was marred by widespread accusations of election fraud, leading to the Orange Revolution and an order by the Ukrainian Supreme Court to repeat the vote.

Yushchenko won the revote 52% to 44%.

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.

The rest of his presidency was marked by infighting, legislative deadlock and coalition crises in 2007 and in 2008.

He lost re-election to Yanukovych in the 2010 Ukrainian presidential election, finishing in fifth place in the first round with 5.5% of the vote.

Yushchenko again led Our Ukraine in the 2012 parliamentary election, but they failed to win representation.