Leonid Kuchma

In October 1994, Kuchma announced comprehensive economic reforms, including reduced subsidies, lifting of price controls, lower taxes, privatization of industry and agriculture, and reforms in currency regulation and banking. The parliament approved the plan's main points. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) promised a $360 million loan to initiate reforms.

He was re-elected in 1999 to his second term. Opponents accused him of involvement in the killing in 2000 of journalist Georgiy Gongadze (see also SBU, "Cassette Scandal", Mykola Mel'nychenko), which he has always denied. Critics also blamed Kuchma for restrictions on press freedom. Kuchma is believed to have played a key role in sacking the Cabinet of Viktor Yushchenko by Verkhovna Rada on 26 April 2001.

Kuchma's Prime Minister from 2002 until early January 2005 was Viktor Yanukovych, after Kuchma dismissed Anatoliy Kinakh, his previous appointee.

President Vladimir Putin with Leonid Kuchma, in the centre, and Azeri President Heydar Aliyev before an expanded meeting of the CIS Council of Heads of State in 2000.

In 2002 Kuchma stated that Ukraine wanted to sign an association agreement with the European Union (EU) by 2003–2004 and that Ukraine would meet all EU membership requirements by 2007–2011.[17] He also hoped for a free-trade treaty with the EU.[17]

In his inaugural address Kuchma said:

Historically, Ukraine is part of the Euro-Asian cultural and economics space. Ukraine's vitally important national interests are now concentrated on this territory of the former Soviet Union. ... We are also linked with... the former republics of the Soviet Union by traditional scientific, cultural and family ties... I am convinced that Ukraine can assume the role of one of the leaders of Euro-Asian economic integration.[18]

Kuchma signed a "Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership" with Russia, and endorsed a round of talks with the CIS. Additionally, he referred to Russian as "an official language". He signed a special partnership agreement with NATO and raised the possibility of membership of the alliance.

After Kuchma's popularity at home and abroad sank as he became mired in corruption scandals, he turned to Russia as his new ally. He said that Ukraine needed a "multivector" foreign policy that balanced eastern and western interests.

From 1998 to 2000, Kuchma's bodyguard Mykola Melnychenko was allegedly eavesdropping Kuchma's office, later publishing the recordings. The release of the tapes – dubbed "Kuchmagate" by the Ukrainian press – supposedly revealed Kuchma's numerous crimes. In particular, his approving the sale of radar systems to Saddam Hussein (among other illegal arms sales) and ordering Ukraine's police minister to "take care" of the journalist Georgiy Gongadze.

Ukraine Without Kuchma protests. 6 February 2001.

In September 2000, Gongadze disappeared and his headless corpse was found mutilated on 3 November 2000. On 28 November, the opposition politician Oleksandr Moroz publicised the tape recordings implicating Kuchma in Gongadze's murder. In 2005 the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's office instigated criminal proceedings against Kuchma and members of his former administration in connection with the murder of Gongadze.[19] In 2005 the press reported that Kuchma had been unofficially granted immunity from prosecution in return for his graceful departure from office in 2005.[20][21]

Critics of the tape point to the difficulty of Melnychenko recording 500 hours of dictaphone tape unaided and undetected, the lack of material evidence of said recording equipment, and other doubts which question the authenticity and motive of the release of the tape. Kuchma acknowledged in 2003 that his voice was one of those on the tapes, but claimed the tapes had been selectively edited to distort his meaning.[22] However, the United States ambassador to Ukraine, Carlos Pascual, revealed that the tapes are genuine, undistorted, unaltered, and not manipulated because of the conclusion from FBI Electronic Research Facility's analysis of the original recording device and the original recording found that there are not unusual sounds which would indicate a tampering of the recording, the recording is continuous with no breaks, and there is no manipulation of the digital files.[23][24]

The General Prosecutor of Ukraine's Office canceled its resolution to deny opening of criminal cases against Kuchma and other politicians within the Gongadze-case on 9 October 2010.[25] On 22 March 2011, Ukraine opened an official investigation into the murder of Gongadze and, two days later, Ukrainian prosecutors charged Kuchma with involvement in the murder.[26][27] A Ukrainian district court ordered prosecutors to drop criminal charges against Kuchma on 14 December 2011 on grounds that evidence linking him to the murder of Gongadze was insufficient.[28] The court rejected Melnychenko's recordings as evidence.[29] Gongadze's widow Myroslava Gongadze lodged an appeal against the ruling one week later.[30]

During the trial of Oleksiy Pukach for the murder of Gongadze, he claimed that Kuchma and Kuchma's head of his Presidential Administration, Volodymyr Lytvyn, were the ones who ordered the murder.[31][32] Pukach was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for his part in the murder of Gongadze.[31]

First Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine Renat Kuzmin claimed 20 February 2013 that his office had collected enough evidence confirming Kuchma's responsibility for ordering Gongadze's assassination.[33] Kuchma's reply the next day was, "This is another banal example of a provocation, which I've heard more than enough in the past 12 years".[33]

Kuchma's role in the election crisis of 2004 is not entirely clear. After the second round on 22 November 2004, it appeared that Yanukovych had won the election by fraud, which caused the opposition and independent observers to dispute the results, leading to the Orange Revolution.

Kuchma was urged by Yanukovych and Viktor Medvedchuk (the head of the presidential office) to declare a state of emergency and hold the inauguration of Yanukovych. He denied the request. Later, Yanukovych publicly accused Kuchma of a betrayal. Kuchma refused to officially dismiss Prime Minister Yanukovych after the parliament passed a motion of no confidence against the Cabinet on 1 December 2004. Soon after, Kuchma left the country. He returned to Ukraine in March 2005.

Kuchma said in October 2009 he would vote for Victor Yanukovych at the 2010 Ukrainian presidential election.[34] In a document dated 2 February 2010 uncovered during the United States diplomatic cables leak, Kuchma in conversation with United States Ambassador to Ukraine John F. Tefft, 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.[35]

In September 2011 Kuchma stated that he believed that Yanukovych was the real winner of the 2004 election.[36]

Kuchma represented Ukraine at negotiations with the armed separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces on 21 June 2014 to discuss President Petro Poroshenko's peace plan.[40][41] His role as a diplomat was received positively by the west and Russia as well as by the public in Ukraine.[42]

On 11 February 2015, Kuchma was one of the signatories of a draft plan to end the conflict in Donbas. The summit was known as Minsk II. The plan ensured that a ceasefire was implemented; reaction from leaders in Europe was generally positive.[43]

In March 2015, Kuchma delivered an address calling on the west for greater involvement in the region.[44] He criticized the action of Russian-backed forces in the attempt to seize the town of Debaltseve.[45]

Kuchma instigated the decommissioning of the Chernobyl power plant's reactor.

In September 2015 Kuchma was again appointed as the representative for Ukraine at the Trilateral Contact Group. The group met in Belarus to discuss ending the conflict in Donbas. The choice of Kuchma came nearly a decade after his presidency ended.

In early 2017, Kuchma spoke out against the transport blockade of Donbass.[46][47] In March 2017 at the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) in Minsk, he demanded that the Russian Federation repeal their decree on the recognition of passports issued in separatist-held areas.[48]

On 2 October 2018, Kuchma stepped down as Ukraine's representative in the Trilateral Contact Group due to his age.[49] He returned to the talks in June 2019, at the request of newly elected Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and after mediation by Victor Pinchuk.[50][51] According to American sources, he left the post again in July 2020, citing fatigue. He was replaced by Leonid Kravchuk.[52][53]

• Volodymyr Horbulin – personal friend, aide, later Head of the National Security and Defense Council
• Volodymyr Lytvyn – long-term first aide, later Head of Presidential Administration, then Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada
• Viktor Medvedchuk – business oligarch, then First Vice Speaker of Verkhovna Rada, later Head of Presidential Administration (2001–2004)
• Dmytro Tabachnyk – manager of the Kuchma's first successful election campaign, later Head of Presidential Administration, then Vice Prime Minister;,[54] Minister of Science and Education (2010-2014)

• Leonid Derkach – personal friend, Head of the Security Service of Ukraine
• Yuri Kravchenko – Minister of Internal Affairs (police chief), committed suicide after the fall of Kuchma's regime
• Oleksandr Omelchenko – long-term governor and mayor of Kyiv

• Ihor Bakai – business oligarch, later head of Naftogas of Ukraine national gas and oil company, then Head of the State Accommodation Department, escaped to Russia after the fall of Kuchma's regime, refusing to return permanently
• Heorhiy Kirpa – long-term head of the Ukrzaliznytsia national railways, then Minister of Transportation, committed suicide after the fall of Kuchma's regime
• Viktor Pinchuk – second son-in-law, business oligarch in control of several important media