Leonid Kravchuk, a former communist politician who helped sign the Soviet Union’s death warrant and later served as independent Ukraine’s first president, died on Tuesday at the age of 88. He presided over the country from 1991 to 1994.
Current president Volodymyr Zelensky, now leading Ukraine in confrontation with invading Russian forces, has described Kravchuk as a wise leader who guided the country through the chaotic early years of independence from Soviet rule.
“He was a person who was always able to find wise words and express them in such a way that they would be heard by all Ukrainians,” Zelensky said in a speech.
Kravchuk, the president said, showed wisdom as Ukraine’s national movement gained momentum in the late 1980s, culminating in a December 1991 referendum in which more than 90 percent of voters chose independence. Kravchuk was elected president the same day.
the former president became known as the “cunning fox” as he rose through the ranks of the Communist Party of Ukraine, taking over as head of parliament in what was then a Soviet republic in 1990.
But he left the party shortly after a failed coup against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in August 1991. Ukraine’s parliament adopted a declaration of independence that same month.
In December 1991, he signed the Belovezha Accords with Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Belarusian leader Stanislav Shushkevich that effectively triggered the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Since 28 July 2020, Kravchuk has headed the Ukrainian delegation in the working group aimed at trying to resolve the conflict in the Donbass region in the east of the country.
In June 2021, the former president underwent a heart operation and fell into a coma, later being admitted to a clinic in Germany for rehabilitation, Russian news agency Tass reported. In 2017, he underwent a procedure to place a flexible endoprosthesis in the carotid artery.
(With information from CNN Portugal)
Source: CNN Brasil
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