Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych is a former Ukrainian politician who served as the fourth president of Ukraine from 2010 to 2014. He also served as the prime minister of Ukraine several times between 2002 and 2007 and was a member of the Verkhovna Rada from 2006 to 2010. A member of the pro-Russian Party of Regions, Yanukovych was removed from the presidency by the Ukrainian parliament in 2014, at the time neighboring Russia started to annex Ukrainian Crimea. Since then, he has lived in exile in Russia.

Viktor Yanukovych was born in the village of Zhukovka near Yenakiieve in Donetsk Oblast, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union. Of his childhood he has written: "My childhood was difficult and hungry. I grew up without my mother, who died when I was two. I went around bare-footed on the streets. I had to fight for myself every day.