Oleksandr yanukovych biography of george michael

KIEV, Ukraine -- The president of Ukraine has taken sick leave in the midst of his country's crisis.

President Viktor Yanukovych is suffering an acute respiratory illness and high fever, the presidential website states. Officials gave no indication of how long he may be on leave or whether he would be able to work from his sickbed to end the two-month old protests against him.

The news comes as Ukrainian experts warn the country is on the brink of civil war.

Meanwhile, Ukraine's prime minister has resigned. So has the cabinet. But many of the tens of thousands of protestors on the streets of Kiev say this is not enough.

"We are demanding the resignation of the parliament, of the president, for snap presidential and parliament elections to take place," anti-government protestor Bogdan Cossak told CBN News.

Downtown Kiev is ground zero, the epicenter of the battle for opposition forces. For two months, tens of thousands of people have gathered in the capital to demand the president step down.

The crisis started in November after Russian President Vladimir Putin convinced Yanukovych to refuse a major trade deal and closer ties with the European Union for closer relations with Russia instead.

Michael Cherenkov, an analyst based in Kiev, said from the Kremlin's perspective, Russia has no borders.

"Russia thinks Ukraine is still part of their territory, part of their empire so they were more than happy to help bail out Ukraine," Cherenkov explained.

But it wasn't what many Ukrainians wanted so they took to the streets by the thousands. The protests have since morphed into demands for more human rights, less corruption, more democracy and an end to the government's authoritarian policies.

"People see the policies of President Yanukovych as a symbol of everything that is wrong with our country, so they want new leadership, a new direction," Cherenkov said.

Earlier this month, Yanukovych pushed through

Wilson, Andrew. "CHAPTER 3. Yanukovych’s Ukraine". Ukraine Crisis: What It Means for the West, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014, pp. 38-65. https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300212921-004

Wilson, A. (2014). CHAPTER 3. Yanukovych’s Ukraine. In Ukraine Crisis: What It Means for the West (pp. 38-65). New Haven: Yale University Press. https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300212921-004

Wilson, A. 2014. CHAPTER 3. Yanukovych’s Ukraine. Ukraine Crisis: What It Means for the West. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 38-65. https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300212921-004

Wilson, Andrew. "CHAPTER 3. Yanukovych’s Ukraine" In Ukraine Crisis: What It Means for the West, 38-65. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014. https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300212921-004

Wilson A. CHAPTER 3. Yanukovych’s Ukraine. In: Ukraine Crisis: What It Means for the West. New Haven: Yale University Press; 2014. p.38-65. https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300212921-004

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In February, when the bombs began falling on Kyiv, I immediately thought of Sergii Leshchenko. He isn’t a friend or colleague exactly, but I feel indebted to him. Over the years, at a series of Kyiv cafés, he has patiently explained the dark corners of Ukrainian politics to me, sharing insights gleaned from his long career as an investigative reporter. In those earliest hours of the war, as I watched CNN correspondents crouching in the parking garages of their hotels, I worried about what might befall him. I sent him a text extending my “solidarity and prayers,” a gesture that, even as I made it, felt inadequate to the moment.

I had first met Leshchenko in May 2014, in the back room of a sleek Kyiv restaurant serving food from the republic of Georgia. A group of journalists, both local and foreign, had assembled, and the mood was ebullient. Three months earlier, a revolution had chased President Viktor Yanukovych, a Russian-backed kleptocrat, from power.

Leshchenko seemed young then: wiry, bespectacled, clad in a button-down shirt, a quiet presence. He had been something of a prodigy; the son of engineers, he had obtained his first press pass when he was 17. In the early years of independence from the Soviet Union, he roamed the corridors of Parliament, gawking at the new titans of the nation’s politics.

He didn’t set out to be an investigative journalist. The vocation was thrust upon him. In 2000, two weeks after he began working for a newspaper, his editor went missing. Two months later, the editor’s corpse was discovered in the forest, decapitated, drenched with chemicals, and charred. Investigating the murder, which was never officially solved but strongly implicated a former president, provided Leshchenko with an advanced education in the hideous tactics of the powerful.

Revealing the corruption of the elite was dan