Leonid Kuchma
Leonid Kuchma is a Ukrainian politician and the second president of independent Ukraine, serving two terms from 1994 to 2005. Before his election he had been prime minister of Ukraine in 1992–1993 and earlier spent much of his career in the Soviet missile and space industry, rising to senior posts at the Yuzhmash plant in Dnipropetrovsk. He returned to public life in 2014 as Ukraine's representative in the Trilateral Contact Group on the settlement of the conflict in the Donbas, a role he held until 2021.
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Lviv Regional Council Declares 2027 'Year of UPA, Shukhevych and Olzhych,' Sparking Polish Outcry
On 20 October the Lviv Oblast Council voted to designate 2027 as a year honouring the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), its commander Roman Shukhevych and poet Oleh Olzhych. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz and Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski sharply criticised the move, with Sikorski signing a motion to add the initiative's author, Sviatoslav Sheremeta, to Poland's list of undesirable persons. Ukraine's Foreign Ministry called the decision counterproductive and stressed it was a regional act taken without consulting central authorities.