The first president of Ukraine (1991-1994), Leonid Kravchuk, passed away on Tuesday, May 10, said People’s Deputy of Ukraine, ex-Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Dmitry Razumkov.
“A great loss for all of Ukraine. Today, Leonid Kravchuk, the first President of Ukraine, the first Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada and the figure who stood at the origins of modern Ukrainian statehood, passed away,” Razumkov wrote in Telegram.
As it became known to the Interfax-Ukraine agency, Leonid Kravchuk was hospitalized with Covid-19 coronavirus infection in one of the foreign clinics in 2021, was in a coma for a long time, then underwent rehabilitation abroad of Ukraine.
Leonid Kravchuk was born on January 10, 1934. From 1970 to 1991, he held various positions in the structure of the Communist Party of Ukraine and the CPSU, left the ranks of the Communist Party after the August coup. In July 1990, he became chairman of the Supreme Council of the Ukrainian SSR, it was under his leadership that the resolution and the Act of the Declaration of Independence of Ukraine were adopted. From August 24 to December 5, 1991 – Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.
He was elected President of Ukraine in the first direct presidential elections on December 1, 1991, following which he won 61.6% of the vote. On December 8, 1991, together with the President of the Russian Federation (RSFSR) Boris Yeltsin and Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Belarus Stanislav Shushkevich, he signed the Belovezhskaya Accords on the termination of the existence of the USSR.
In the early presidential elections of 1994, he lost to Leonid Kuchma in the second round, gaining 45.1% of the vote. From 1994 until 2006 he was elected a people’s deputy of Ukraine.
From July 28, 2020 to February 21, 2022 – Chairman of the Ukrainian delegation to the Trilateral Contact Group on the settlement of the situation in Donbas.
