1999 re-election : Blue – Leonid Kuchma, red –
Petro Symonenko Kuchma was
re-elected in 1999 to his second term.
Domestic policy During its later years, Kuchma's presidential regime was described as a "blackmail state" due to his government's systematic use of
blackmail in order to persecute political opponents. Kuchma's administration closed opposition papers and several journalists and political opponents, such as
Viacheslav Chornovil, died in mysterious circumstances. Opponents accused him of involvement in the killing in 2000 of journalist Georgiy Gongadze, but Kuchma has consistently denied such claims. Critics have also blamed Kuchma for restrictions on press freedom. Kuchma is believed to have played a key role in sacking the
Cabinet of
Viktor Yushchenko by
Verkhovna Rada on 26 April 2001. After his dismissal Yushchenko became the main leader of anti-Kuchma opposition. He also hoped for a
free trade treaty with the EU. After Kuchma's popularity at home and abroad sank as he became mired in corruption scandals, he turned to Russia as his new ally. From the late 1990s he adopted a foreign policy which he described as "
multi-vector", reaching out to Russia, Europe, and the United States. Critics assessed this policy as manipulating both the West and Russia to the personal benefit of Kuchma and
Ukrainian oligarchs. On 4 October 2001,
Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 was shot down over the Black Sea by the Ukrainian Air Force while en route to
Novosibirsk, Russia, from
Tel Aviv,
Israel. All 78 occupants of the plane, most of whom were Israelis visiting relatives in Russia, were killed. Following the shootdown, Kuchma initially refused to accept the resignation of
Oleksandr Kuzmuk, Minister of Defence of Ukraine, and said, "Look what is happening around the world, in Europe. We are not the first, and we will not be the last. There is no need to make a tragedy out of this. Mistakes happen everywhere, and not only on this scale, but on a much larger, planetary scale." A week later, however, Kuchma announced his willingness to cooperate with Russian investigators, apologised to the governments of Russia and Israel, and accepted Kuzmuk's resignation.
Murder of Georgiy Gongadze and Cassette Scandal From 1998 to 2000, Kuchma's bodyguard
Mykola Melnychenko was allegedly eavesdropping Kuchma's office, later publishing the recordings. The release of the tapes – dubbed the Cassette Scandal – supposedly revealed Kuchma's numerous crimes, in particular approving the sale of radar systems to
Saddam Hussein among other illegal arms sales and ordering the death of journalist
Georgiy Gongadze. protests, 6 February 2001 In September 2000, Gongadze disappeared and his headless corpse was found mutilated on 3 November 2000. On 28 November, opposition politician
Oleksandr Moroz publicised the tape recordings implicating Kuchma in Gongadze's murder. In 2005, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's office instigated criminal proceedings against Kuchma and members of his former administration in connection with the murder of Gongadze. In 2005, the press reported that Kuchma had been unofficially granted immunity from prosecution in return for his graceful departure from office. Critics of the tapes point to the difficulty of Melnychenko recording 500 hours of dictaphone tape unaided and undetected, the lack of material evidence of said recording equipment, and other doubts which question the authenticity and motive of the release of the tape. Kuchma acknowledged in 2003 that his voice was one of those on the tapes, but claimed the tapes had been selectively edited to distort their meaning. However, according to the
United States ambassador to Ukraine,
Carlos Pascual, that the tapes are genuine, undistorted, unaltered, and not manipulated. His statement was based on the conclusion made by
FBI Electronic Research Facility's analysis of the original recording device and the original recording, which found no unusual sounds which would indicate tampering of the recording, detected no breaks in its continuity and no traces of manipulation in the digital files. The
Prosecutor General of Ukraine's Office cancelled its resolution to deny opening of criminal cases against Kuchma and other politicians within the Gongadze-case on 9 October 2010. On 22 March 2011, Ukraine opened an official investigation into the murder of Gongadze and, two days later, Ukrainian prosecutors charged Kuchma with involvement in the murder. A Ukrainian district court ordered prosecutors to drop criminal charges against Kuchma on 14 December 2011 on grounds that evidence linking him to the murder of Gongadze was insufficient. The court rejected Melnychenko's recordings as evidence. Gongadze's widow,
Myroslava Gongadze, lodged an appeal against the ruling one week later. During the trial of
Oleksiy Pukach for the murder of Gongadze, he claimed that Kuchma and Kuchma's head of his
Presidential Administration,
Volodymyr Lytvyn, were the ones who ordered the murder. Pukach was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for his part in the murder of Gongadze. Kuchma's reply the next day was, "This is another banal example of a provocation, which I've heard more than enough in the past 12 years". Kuchma, who had been cleared by the
Constitutional Court to run for a third term, eventually refused to take part in the elections and endorsed the candidacy of Viktor Yanukovych, who was also supported by Russian president
Vladimir Putin. Kuchma was urged by Yanukovych and
Viktor Medvedchuk (the head of the presidential office) to declare a
state of emergency and hold the inauguration of Yanukovych. He denied the request. Later, Yanukovych publicly accused Kuchma of a betrayal. Kuchma refused to officially dismiss Prime Minister Yanukovych after the parliament passed a
motion of no confidence against the Cabinet on 1 December 2004. Soon after, Kuchma left the country. He returned to Ukraine in March 2005. In September 2011, Kuchma stated that he believed that Yanukovych was the real winner of the 2004 election. ==Post-presidency==