Leonid Kravchuk, Ukraine’s first president, was a Soviet apparatchik who made blunders but was nonetheless a lucky break for his country.
What did Leonid Kravchuk do for Ukraine?
Every country has a number one: the first person to be elected president. Leonid Kravchuk was the winner in Ukraine.
He was an apparatchik in charge of ideology and propaganda when, in the fateful year of 1991, he found himself at the head of the second-largest Soviet republic and became the man who led Ukraine to independence from Moscow.
Kravchuk was a crucial figure in the demise of the Soviet Union more than 30 years ago.
According to Ukrainian officials and media reports on Tuesday, he died at the age of 88.
Kravchuk led Ukraine through trying times. With a population of about 52 million people, Europe’s second-largest country was obliged to relearn everything.
It has no prior experience as a sovereign state.
It was a difficult shift from a planned to a market economy, and from party rule to democracy.
Millions of Ukrainians have been forced to live in poverty.
But Ukraine survived, and Kravchuk deserves credit for that.
Despite his flaws, he was successful in keeping peace and political stability in the country as president.
At a period when most other former Soviet republics were riven by civil strife, this was quite an accomplishment.
