Former Ukrainian President Yanukovych (right) has a very pro-Russian stance. Foreign sources pointed out that Putin was the inspiration behind his two-time presidential candidacy.Picture: Retrieved from the official website of the Kremlin
Former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who was once rated as similar to former President Ma Ying-jeou, was suspected of colluding with Russia and assisted Russian representatives in illegally entering and transporting people during the Crimean War in 2014,19 The arrest was approved by the Ukrainian court in Kyiv. Yanukovych’s whereabouts are currently unknown, and it is reported that he is already in Anapa, Russia, but the arrest warrant remains unchanged.
After Ukraine’s independence, Russia has always been unwilling. The report pointed out that Yanukovych challenged the presidency as the current prime minister in 2004, and the spirit behind it was Russian President Vladimir Putin. Although he failed to win the election that year, but In 2006 he returned to Congress to become prime minister again, and in 2010 he made a comeback to challenge the presidency successfully.
Yanukovych’s stance was quite pro-Russian after he came to power. Not only did he refuse to sign a free trade agreement with the EU, but he also hoped to establish a closer relationship with Russian loans. The result was a political crisis.At the time, Bloomberg Businessweek also reported that“Taiwan’s embattled president (Ma Ying-jeou) resembles Ukraine’s ousted leader”。
The Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine said on the 19th that the former president organized smuggling and facilitated the illegal crossing of the Ukrainian border, foreign reports. It turned out that Yanukovych was suspected of assisting Russian representatives to cross the border illegally and transporting more than 20 people across the border to Anapa, Russia, when the crisis broke out in Crimea in February 2014.
Yanukovych was charged with treason in January 2019, although of course he did not appear at the trial, where he was sentenced to 13 years in prison by a Ukrainian court. This time, the Kyiv court issued an arrest warrant for his collusion with Russia.