Petro Oleksiyovych Poroshenko (born 26 September 1965) is a Ukrainian businessman and politician who served as the fifth president of Ukraine from 2014 to 2019. Poroshenko served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2009 to 2010, and as the Minister of Trade and Economic Development in 2012. From 2007 until 2012, he headed the Council of Ukraine's National Bank. He was elected president on 25 May 2014, receiving 54.7% of the votes cast in the first round, thus winning outright and avoiding a run-off. During his presidency, Poroshenko led the country through the first phase of the War in Donbas, pushing the Russian separatist forces into the Donbas Region. He began the process of integration with the European Union by signing the European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement.
Poroshenko's domestic policy promoted the Ukrainian language, nationalism, inclusive capitalism, decommunization, and administrative decentralization. In 2018, Poroshenko helped create the autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine, separating Ukrainian churches from the Moscow Patriarchate. His presidency was distilled into a three-word slogan, employed by both supporters and opponents: armiia, mova, vira (English: military, language, faith).
As a candidate for a second term in 2019, Poroshenko obtained 24.5% in the second round, and was defeated by Volodymyr Zelenskyy. There was no true consensus in the expert community on a singular reason for why Poroshenko lost, though various reasons cited are; a rapid decline in the overall quality of life, failure to successfully end the war, failure to stem corruption, several corruption scandals in which Poroshenko or people closely associated with him were involved (that included an investigation publicized during the election campaign, according to which Poroshenko's people created a money laundering scheme in Ukroboronprom), a conflict with Ihor Kolomoyskyi which resulted in an anti-Poroshenko campaign by 1+1 Media Group (one of the largest media conglomerates in Ukraine), an information campaign supported by Russia against him, an overall fatigue from Ukrainian political elites, a presidential campaign that was focused almost exclusively on the right-wing and nationalistic population and exploited the patriotism topic at the expense of debates about social and economic situation, and lack of understanding and communication with Ukrainian people.
Poroshenko is a people's deputy of the Verkhovna Rada and leader of the European Solidarity party. Outside government, Poroshenko has been a prominent Ukrainian oligarch with a lucrative career in acquiring and building assets. His most recognized brands are Roshen, a large-scale confectionery company which has earned him the nickname of "Chocolate King", and his TV news channel 5 kanal, which he was forced to sell to comply with anti-oligarch legislation in November 2021. He is considered an oligarch due to the scale of his business holdings in manufacturing, agriculture and finance, his political influence from several stints in government prior to his presidency, and his ownership of an influential mass-media outlet.
