Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

Ukraine's 1st President Leonid Kravchuk Passes away


Wed 11 May 2022 | 11:25 AM
Rana Atef

The First President of independent Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk passed away at the age of 88, officials in Kyiv announced on Wednesday.

Kravchuk headed Ukraine to independence after the fall of the Soviet Union and served as its first president until 1994.

He was one of the participants of the LP treaty signing between Russia and Belarus that dissolved the USSR in December 1991.

Andriy Yermak, the head of the current Ukrainian President's office, confirmed the death of the former president on Telegram.

Kravchuk suffered from several medical complications lately, and he had a heart operation last year.

It is worthy to mention that the former President was the one who agreed to transfer the remaining Soviet nuclear weapons on Ukrainian territory to Russia in an agreement supported by the US.

In 1994, his party lost the elections to former Prime Minister Leonid Kuchma.

He returned to the political scene in 2020 to for negotiating a settlement for the conflict in eastern Ukraine with Russia since the escalations in the region in 2014.

Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov responded to the news of the 88-year old-leader, tweeting: “Thank you for the peaceful renewal of our Independence. We’re defending it now with weapons in our hands."