In 1991 Leonid Kravchuk was elected head of state. Now he is dead.
Former Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk during a press conference in Bonn in 1992.
(dpa) According to media reports, the first president of independent Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk, is dead. Kravchuk died at the age of 88 after a long illness, Ukrainian media reported on Tuesday, citing the politician’s family. “This is sad news and a great loss,” wrote the head of the President’s Office, Andri Yermak, in the news service Telegram.
Kravchuk was elected head of state at the beginning of December 1991 and a few days later signed an agreement with the then Russian President Boris Yeltsin (1931-2007) and Stanislav Schushkevich from Belarus, declaring the Soviet Union dissolved and founding a new alliance of the three republics became: the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
During Soviet times, Kravchuk held various posts in the Ukrainian Communist Party. He remained President of Ukraine until 1994. His Belarusian counterpart at the time, Schushkevich, died last week at the age of 87.