Poroshenko, Petro Oleksiyovych

Poroshenko, Petro Oleksiyovych

(pĕtrô` ôlĕksē`yôvĭch pôrôshĕn`kô), 1965–, Ukrainian political leader and businessman. He studied economics at Kiev State Univ. (grad. 1989) and went into the confectionary business with his father. His Roshen group became the largest confectioner in Ukraine, earning him the nickname "the Chocolate King." Poroshenko also has business interests in automotive manufacturing, shipyards, and television. In 1998 he turned over the directorship of Roshen to his father, and served in parliament (1998–2002), intially as a member of the Social Democratic party but from 2000 as part of Solidarity, which he founded. He also helped found (2000) what became the Party of Regions (2001), but in 2001 he supported Viktor YushchenkoYushchenko, Viktor Andriyovych,,
1954–, Ukrainian politician, president of Ukraine (2005–10), b. Khoruzhivka, Ukraine. A technocrat trained as an accountant and economist, he rose in Ukraine's banking system under Soviet rule, and after Ukrainian independence he
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 of the Our Ukraine party, and subsequently was elected to parliament (2002, 2006) on the Our Ukraine slate. He served as secretary of the national security and defense council (2005) and foreign minister (2009–10) under President Yushchenko, then as minister of trade and economic development (2012) under President Viktor YanukovychYanukovych, Viktor Fedorovych
, 1950–, Ukrainian politician, president of Ukraine (2010–14). The graduate of a mining college and a polytechnic institute (1980), he was a mechanical engineer and member of the Soviet Communist party, and became manager of a
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 of the Party of Regions. In 2012 he won election to parliament as an independent. After the collapse of the Yanukovych government (Feb., 2014), Poroshenko was elected president in May, 2014, as an independent. He opposed Russia's annexation of CrimeaCrimea
, Rus. and Ukr. Krym, peninsula and republic (1991 est. pop. 2,363,000), c.10,000 sq mi (25,900 sq km), SE Europe, linked with the mainland by the Perekop Isthmus. The peninsula is bounded on the S and W by the Black Sea.
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 and sought international support for Ukraine's fight against ethnic Russian rebels and their Russian allies in E Ukraine, but he also was accused of slowing needed government economic reforms. In 2019–19, he succeeding in winning recognition, by the patriarch of Constantinople, of the independence of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. He failed to win reelection in 2019, losing to Volodymyr Zelensky.