The 33-year-old Junior, a former member of parliament and the younger son of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych, reportedly drowned after a vehicle he was driving plunged into Lake Baikal in Russia on March 22. His five passengers reportedly escaped.
Russian officials haven’t yet said much about the circumstances of the accident. According to UNIAN news agency, Russian mass media reported that the name of the driver who died was Viktor Davydov, the maiden name of his mother.
The death was first confirmed by member of parliament Nestor Shufrich who, on a Facebook post, wrote that “Viktor Yanukovych Jr. tragically died. He died as he lived – at the wheel of a car.”
Shufrich went on to praise Yanukovych Jr. for his contributions to developing motor sports in Ukraine. He was known to love speed racing.
Shufrich expressed condolences to Yanukovych Jr.’s wife, Olga, son, parents Viktor and Lyudmila, and other relatives and friends. (According to his Wikipedia entry, he was born on July 16, 1981, in Yenakiieve and married Olga Stanislavovna Korochanska. They had a son Iliya.)
“It is an irreparable loss for many,” Shufrich wrote. “Let us remember.”
Continuing with the positives, this is what I know about Viktor Yanukovych Jr.:
— He took a strong stance in 2012 to ban tobacco advertising in Ukraine, a policy that saves lives. “Tobacco advertising should be prohibited,” he said. “Smoking should not be stylish.” His father signed the ban into law in March 2012.
— In 2012, fellow Party of Regions member of parliament Olena Bondarenko defended his qualifications to be in the Verkhovna Rada. She said he has proposed many initiatives to improve the nation’s information technology sector. “We needs their brains as specialists,” she said. “Who their dads and brothers are might be important, but it’s certainly not the most important thing.”
— In January 2013, he became acting head of the Automobile Federation of Ukraine. It is a non-governmental organization founded in 1992 to bring together car enthusiasts, racers and other fans in all regions of Ukraine.
— His Wikipedia entry says he favored state support of Ukraine’s film industry.
— He was not facing any criminal charges in Ukraine, unlike his father and older brother Oleksandr, as well as the many members of the Yanukovych administration who fled in February 2014 and who are hiding out in Russia.
But the list of negatives for Yanukovych Jr. is also significant.
— On Dec. 23, 2011, the Kyiv Post published a front-page story headlined “Yanukovych Jr. is a good copy of Yanukovych Sr.” We found convincing evidence that he plagiarized significant parts of his doctoral thesis that he defended in 2009 for the Donetsk State University of Management. His father was dogged with similar plagiarism accusations for an English-language book “Opportunity Ukraine” that disappeared from bookshelves when the controversy became public. I recall skipping the company Christmas party that night as Yanukovych Jr.’s aide came to the Kyiv Post and, as we say, read me the riot act. In a statement that we published with the story, Yanukovych Jr. denied the accusations and threatened a libel lawsuit. But nothing became of it.
— Since becoming a member of parliament in 2006, he was videotaped voting on behalf of other members of parliament, a practice prohibited by the constitution but commonplace in the Verkhovna Rada.
— In July 2011, a video posted on YouTube in July shows him staggering and unsteady on his feet, cursing and struggling to find his way home in Kyiv while his bodyguards tried to help him on Kropyvnytska Street. Most people, like I did, simply assumed he was drunk on a public street in broad daylight at the time. It can be watched here.
There had been published rumors that he and his father had a difficult relationship. I have no idea. But when asked about his children, the president during a 2011 press conference wasn’t exactly beaming with pride. He was quoted only as saying that he is “not ashamed” of his children or grandchildren.
Of course, in the family, older brother Oleksandr, who does face criminal corruption charges, was known as the businessman and one of the keepers of the family fortune. Trained as a dentist, he became spectacularly wealthy quickly after his father took the presidency in 2010. If the criminal charges are right, he got rich the same way that many Ukrainians suspect that he did — he stole money in one scheme after another that looted the public.
The Yanukovyches, of course, have denied all wrongdoing.
Whatever his role, Yanukovych Jr. was part of “The Family” that ruled Ukraine from 2010 until they fled last year.
Alexander J. Motyl, a Rutgers University political science professor who was prescient in predicting the downfall of Yanukovych at least two years before it happened, wrote this about “The Family,” the close circle of advisers that surrounded the ex-president, on March 23, 2012:
“The rise of the Yanukovych Family is thus a sign of Yanukovych’s growing helplessness. When a president of a big country has to rely on Junior and the Dentist to run the place, you know he’s in trouble. And the trouble will only increase. After all, what do Junior and the Dentist know about running a state? Nothing. And would either of them actually tell Dad the bad news or would they be more inclined to sugarcoat it? The latter, obviously. Which means that the more Yanukovych relies on the boys for information and advice, the more misinformed and ill-advised he will be, and the more incompetent and unprofessional his policies will become. The amassing of Yanukovych Family power heralds nothing less than the fall of Papa Yanukovych.”
Motyl was right.
No human should take joy from the death of another human. While evil people need to be stopped, I don’t know if Yanukovych Jr. was ever in this category. I had the impression that he was just a party boy who enjoyed his father’s access to wealth and power.
However reckless he was in life, or whether recklessness contributed to his death or not, I am certain that he was not the most reckless member of the family.
He did not trigger two revolutions in his lifetime.
He did not destroy the hopes and economy of a nation.
He did not sell out Ukraine to Russia.
He did not allegedly pilfer billions of dollars from the country.
He did not allegedly order the murders of more than 100 EuroMaidan Revolution demonstrators.
He did not leave the country so weakened that it became vulnerable to Russia’s military invasion in Crimea and the eastern Donbas.
No, not even close. The title of most reckless Yanukovych belongs to the one and only — Yanukovych Sr.
Kyiv Post chief editor Brian Bonner can be reached at [email protected]
