Viktor Viktorovych Yanukovych (, , ; 16 July 1981 – 20 March 2015) was a Ukrainian politician and Member of Parliament. He was the son of former
Ukrainian President
The president of Ukraine (, ) is the head of state of Ukraine. The president represents the nation in international relations, administers the foreign political activity of the state, conducts negotiations and concludes international treaties. ...
Viktor Yanukovych
Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych (born 9 July 1950) is a Ukrainian politician who served as the fourth president of Ukraine from 2010 to 2014. He also served as the prime minister of Ukraine several times between 2002 and 2007 and was a member of t ...
.
Early life and education
Yanukovych was born on 16 July 1981 in
Yenakiieve
Yenakiieve (, ; ) is a city and the nominal administrative center of Yenakiieve urban hromada in the Horlivka Raion, Donetsk Oblast of Ukraine. The city stands on the Krynka River about from the oblast's administrative center, Donetsk. Its po ...
,
Donetsk region, to
Viktor Yanukovych
Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych (born 9 July 1950) is a Ukrainian politician who served as the fourth president of Ukraine from 2010 to 2014. He also served as the prime minister of Ukraine several times between 2002 and 2007 and was a member of t ...
and
Lyudmyla Yanukovych. He had one brother named
Oleksandr Yanukovych.
In 1998, Yanukovych graduated from high school with a silver medal. He went on to study "Enterprise Economy" at
Donetsk National University from 1998 to 2003. He graduated with a master's degree in the same field. In 2009, he defended his dissertation titled “Formation and Implementation of State Social Policy” at
Donetsk State University of Management, and earned a
PhD
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...
in public administration.
Activity
From June 2002 to September 2004, Yanukovych served as vice-president of the Donetsk regional public organization Regional Center Spryiannia. From July 2004 to November 2004, he was the first deputy general director of SK, a limited liability company in
Donetsk
Donetsk ( , ; ; ), formerly known as Aleksandrovka, Yuzivka (or Hughesovka), Stalin, and Stalino, is an industrial city in eastern Ukraine located on the Kalmius River in Donetsk Oblast, which is currently occupied by Russia as the capita ...
. In November 2005, he became the first deputy general director of BK Engineering, and also worked as deputy head of the Ukrainian youth public organization "Soyuz molodi regioniv Ukrainy" (Union of Ukrainian Youth of Regions) until 2010. He has been an
MP for the
Party of Regions
A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will often feature ...
in the V, VI and VII parliamentary sessions. In 2010, he became the Honorary President of the Union of Ukrainian Youth of Regions.
During the
, he was re-elected into
parliament
In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...
.
[Список депутатів нової Верховної Ради]
''Ukrayinska Pravda
''Ukrainska Pravda'' is a Ukrainian socio-political online media outlet founded by Heorhii Gongadze in April 2000. After Gongadze’s death in September 2000, the editorial team was led by co-founder Olena Prytula, who remained the editor-in ...
'' (11 November 2012)
Parliamentary activities
Yanukovych was the initiator and project manager of the Ukrainian SMS
referendum
A referendum, plebiscite, or ballot measure is a Direct democracy, direct vote by the Constituency, electorate (rather than their Representative democracy, representatives) on a proposal, law, or political issue. A referendum may be either bin ...
"For the Russian language." The referendum ran from 17 January to 17 March 2006, was a public opinion poll on the question of granting
Russian
Russian(s) may refer to:
*Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*A citizen of Russia
*Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages
*''The Russians'', a b ...
as the second official language. The SMS referendum was recognised by ''Book of Records Ukraine'' for "The most massive online poll in Ukraine" and "the most massive SMS poll in Ukraine."
In 2011, the Ukrainian Parliament adopted a bill on an experiment in information technology, co-authored by Viktor Yanukovych. According to this bill, domestic IT companies would be granted a "
tax holiday
A tax holiday is a temporary reduction or elimination of a tax. It is synonymous with tax abatement, subsidy#Tax subsidy, tax subsidy or tax reduction. Governments usually create tax holidays as incentives for business investment, although the ...
" for 5 years.
Viktor Yanukovych supported the policy of state patronage of the Ukrainian film industry. This policy provides protection and promotion of national films on both domestic and international markets through
tax incentives
A tax incentive is an aspect of a government's taxation policy designed to incentivize or encourage a particular economic activity by reducing tax payments.
Tax incentives can have both positive and negative impacts on an economy. Among the po ...
, financial, and legal support. As a result, an amendment to the Tax Code of Ukraine came into effect on 1 January 2011. The new law states that
VAT
A value-added tax (VAT or goods and services tax (GST), general consumption tax (GCT)) is a consumption tax that is levied on the value added at each stage of a product's production and distribution. VAT is similar to, and is often compared wi ...
exemptions until 2016 will apply to all operations connected with the supply of national films, as determined by the Law of Ukraine "On Cinematography". This covers all manufacturers, distributors and demonstrators, as well as suppliers of services for production, including replication of national and foreign films, duplicated, voiced, or subtitled in the official language in the territory of Ukraine.
In 2011, the Ukrainian film budget reached a record amount of
UAH 111 million, compared to UAH 24 million in 2010. Due to the efforts of Viktor Yanukovych, the State Budget for 2012 was adopted with record funding for the national cinema—UAH 176 million, which is one third higher than the budget of 2011. In 2011, transparent competitions for the funding of locally produced short films were conducted. In 2012, 37 films were selected for production, nine of which were debuts. Thirty projects have already been funded.
In 2011, Yanukovych introduced a certification for highway dividers in Ukraine. The Deputy's proposal on this initiative was sent to the state motorway agency. The first result of the work in this direction has been nationwide monitoring of the old highway dividers on Ukrainian roads.
Personal life
Viktor Yanukovych was married to Olga Korochanska. They had one son named Iliya Viktorovich Yanukovych.
Death
Yanukovych died on the evening of 20 March 2015 when he fell through the ice while driving his minivan on
Lake Baikal
Lake Baikal is a rift lake and the deepest lake in the world. It is situated in southern Siberia, Russia between the Federal subjects of Russia, federal subjects of Irkutsk Oblast, Irkutsk Oblasts of Russia, Oblast to the northwest and the Repu ...
. Yanukovych had driven his vehicle out on the ice near Khoboi Cape on the northern edge of
Olkhon Island. Five of the passengers escaped, but Yanukovych was unable to unfasten his seat belt in time and he drowned. The Ministry of Emergencies in
Irkutsk Oblast
Irkutsk Oblast (; ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (an oblast), located in southeastern Siberia in the basins of the Angara River, Angara, Lena River, Lena, and Nizhnyaya Tunguska Rivers. The administrative center is ...
announced on
BBC Ukraine that the driver's name was Viktor Davydov (Davydov was the maiden surname of Viktor's mother), but
Nestor Shufrych confirmed that the deceased was a son of the former president, Viktor Yanukovych. He was buried in a Russian military cemetery at
Sevastopol
Sevastopol ( ), sometimes written Sebastopol, is the largest city in Crimea and a major port on the Black Sea. Due to its strategic location and the navigability of the city's harbours, Sevastopol has been an important port and naval base th ...
in
Crimea
Crimea ( ) is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukrain ...
.
Russian authorities refused to comment on reports of Yanukovych's death and did not respond to a
Ukrainian Foreign Ministry query about it.
A report about the 20 March 2015 accident that killed Yanukovych was removed from the
Russian Ministry of Emergencies website shortly after it was posted.
[
]
References
External links
Official web-site of Party of Regions
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yanukovych, Viktor
1981 births
2015 deaths
People from Yenakiieve
Ukrainian rally drivers
Ukrainian people of Belarusian descent
Ukrainian people of Russian descent
Ukrainian people of Polish descent
Party of Regions politicians
Fifth convocation members of the Verkhovna Rada
Sixth convocation members of the Verkhovna Rada
Seventh convocation members of the Verkhovna Rada
Donetsk National University alumni
Deaths by drowning in Russia
Road incident deaths in Russia
Children of presidents of Ukraine
Children of prime ministers of Ukraine
Viktor Viktorovych
Russian individuals subject to European Union sanctions
Ukrainian collaborators with Russia