Petro Poroshenko

Petro Oleksiyovych Poroshenko (born 26 September 1965) is a Ukrainian businessman and politician who served as the fifth President of Ukraine from 7 June 2014 to 20 May 2019. He rose to the presidency in the snap election held on 25 May 2014, weeks after the Euromaidan revolution and the ousting of Viktor Yanukovych, winning in the first round with roughly 54% of the vote.

Before entering the presidency, Poroshenko built a confectionery empire centered on Roshen, earning him the nickname "the Chocolate King," and served in several government posts, including Minister of Foreign Affairs (2009–2010) under Yulia Tymoshenko and Minister of Economic Development and Trade (2012) under Mykola Azarov. He was a co-founder of the Party of Regions in 2000 before later breaking with it.

His presidency was defined by the response to Russia's annexation of Crimea (March 2014) and the war in the Donbas. Key milestones included:

• Signing the economic chapters of the EU–Ukraine Association Agreement on 27 June 2014.
• Endorsing the Minsk I (September 2014) and Minsk II (February 2015) ceasefire protocols, negotiated in the Normandy Format with Germany, France, and Russia.
• Securing visa-free travel for Ukrainians to the Schengen Area, which took effect on 11 June 2017.
• Obtaining a tomos of autocephaly for the Orthodox Church of Ukraine from Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew on 6 January 2019.

Poroshenko campaigned on the slogan "Army, Language, Faith" but lost the 2019 election decisively to Volodymyr Zelensky, taking about 25% in the runoff. He subsequently led the European Solidarity parliamentary faction in the Verkhovna Rada. After Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, he remained in Ukraine and publicly supported the war effort, though he has faced domestic treason and sanctions-related investigations that he and his allies characterize as politically motivated.