August 1991 — The Ukrainian Parliament declares the country's independence from the Soviet Union months before the USSR collapses.
December 1991 — Leonid Kravchuk, former chairman of the Ukrainian Supreme Soviet, is elected the first president.
July 1994 — Backed by 52 percent of Ukrainian voters, Leonid Kuchma wins presidential elections.
November 1994 — Former Prime Minister Yefim Zviahilsky escapes abroad following accusations that he stole tens of millions of dollars worth of government funds by illegally exporting oil.
June 1996 — Parliament approves the new constitution.
February 1999 — Parliament votes to strip former prime minister and current legislator Pavlo Lazarenko of immunity so that he may face corruption charges. Lazarenko is accused of stealing US$2 million in state assets.
Swiss authorities freeze over US$20 million in some 40 accounts belonging to Lazarenko, who faces separate charges in Switzerland. After jumping bail in Switzerland and fleeing to the United States, he is arrested for visa violations and is jailed. He is given an 18-month suspended sentence in Switzerland for laundering US$9 million through Swiss banks.
In early 2000, he is indicted in the United States for illegally transporting US$114 million and laundering portions of it. He is released from jail after posting a US$86 million bail. A federal judge in San Francisco sentences him to nine years in prison for money laundering, wire fraud and transporting stolen goods; he is also fined US$10 million.
November 1999 — Kuchma wins re-election by earning 56 percent of the votes. Kuchma appoints reformer Viktor Yushchenko as prime minister.
April 2000 —Presidential powers are increased while those of the legislature are weakened after a referendum. The amendments can be listed as stripping legislators' criminal immunity, limiting the number of legislators, creating a bicameral parliament, and allowing the president to dissolve the legislature whenever there is no working majority.
September 2000 — Georgiy Gongadze, an investigative reporter specializing in corruption, disappears. His dead body is found outside of Kiev.
December 2000 — Olexandr Moroz, the leader of the Socialist Party, plays a recording before parliament in which Kuchma is heard suggesting to his aides that Gongadze be gotten rid of. The revelations, taped by Kuchma security guard Mykola Melnychenko, lead to the collapse of Kuchma's majority coalition in parliament and prompted widespread street protests against Kuchma. In February, the European Union calls for an inquiry into the death of Gongadze.
January 2001 — Yuliya Tymoshenko, deputy prime minister for energy, is charged with smuggling, forgery, and tax evasion after allegedly stealing US$1.8 billion from the state. Shortly thereafter, Kuchma dismisses her from her post. In February, she is sent to prison, where she remains for six weeks until the charges are dismissed. In the aftermath, the judge who dismisses the charges is forced from the bench after being harassed by the government.
February 2001 — The media release an audio tape of President Kuchma telling senior officials shortly before the November 1999 run-off election to tell local officials that unless their districts deliver victories for the president, they will lose their jobs or be sent to prison.
April 2001 — In a no-confidence vote organized by the oligarch-led parties and the Communist Party, 263 of 450 members of Parliament unite to dismiss the government of Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko. Anatoliy Kinakh is appointed as the new prime minister.
October 2001 — The Ukrainian military accidentally shoots down a Russian commercial jet, killing all 78 passengers. While the government originally denies responsibility, it later accepts the blame, and Defense Minister Oleksander Kuzmuk resigns.
February 2002 — Parliament passes the Law on the Judicial System of Ukraine, modernizing the judiciary through programs like continuing education for judges and the creation of a new agency to oversee judicial administration.
March 2002 — General parliamentary elections are held. The opposition Our Ukraine (NU - Blok Nasha Ukrayina) faction, led by the former Prime Minister Yushchenko, gets nearly 25 percent of the votes. Only 12 percent of voters back Kuchma's party, though the pro-Kuchma For United Ukraine (ZJU - Za Jedynu Ukrajinu) coalition still outnumbers the opposition, which accuses the president of widespread fraud and dirty tricks.
March 2002 — Police seize 200,000 copies of the opposition newspaper Svoboda although they had only a search warrant. The confiscated edition of the newspaper was featuring a statement by an opposition member of Parliament that accused the prosecutor general of bribery.
April 2002 — Kuchma is heard authorizing the illegal sale of Kolchuga early-warning radar systems to Iraq in a tape obtained by the Center for Public Integrity.
April 2002 — Boris Feldman, a manager of Slovyanskyy Bank, is convicted of embezzlement and sentenced to nine years in prison, banned from working in the finance sector, and stripped of all property. Prior to the collapse of Slovyanskyy, members of the Kuchma inner circle take out US$100 million in loans, which go unpaid after the bankruptcy.
July 2002 — The Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering declines to remove Ukraine from its blacklist of countries deemed susceptible to money laundering.
August 2002 — Segodnya newspaper confirms that the Kiev prosecutor's office is investigating a gang called the "werewolves," allegedly headed by police officers, who had been kidnapping and killing businessmen in the Kiev region from 1997 to 2000.
November 2002 — Kuchma dismisses Prime Minister Kinakh and nominates Viktor Yanukovych, the governor of Donetsk oblast (province). After Yanukovych is confirmed, Kuchma overhauls his cabinet, installing four new deputy prime ministers, six new ministers, and a new chairman of the Central Bank.
December 2002 — The Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering recommends that Ukraine be one of three countries sanctioned for its inadequate money-control laws, which experts agree are ripe for money laundering. The following month, several countries place Ukraine on watch lists, recommending heightened monitoring of financial transactions.
March 2003 — In one of the largest public protests since independence in 1991, mobs of demonstrators converge on Kiev, protesting Kuchma and demanding that he resign.
August 2003 — Igor Goncharov, the key witness in the "werewolves" investigation, dies in a prison emergency ward. After his death, journalists at the Institute of Mass Information receive several letters signed by Goncharov proclaiming that he had been tortured by government authorities, that high-level government officials were behind the killings blamed on his gang, and that he had information related to the murder of Gongadze. In December, newly appointed Prosecutor General Henadiy Vasylyev declares that Goncharov died of natural causes. Bur the Zerkalo Nedeli newspaper reports that he was killed by lethal injection.
October 2003 — Prosecutor General Svyatosolav Piskun is dismissed for "serious breaches of current legislation and dishonest actions," according to the presidential Anti-Corruption Committee.
December 2003 — The Constitutional Court rules that Kuchma may seek a third term as president.
December 2003 — Volodymyr Karachevtsev, head of the city of Melitopol's independent journalists' union and a deputy editor at the independent newspaper Courier is found hanging by his sweater. Local authorities rule the case a suicide, and The Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) continues to decline to investigate the case. Karachevtsev was covering corruption issues in his writings.
December 2003 — Ukraine signs the U.N. Convention against Corruption.
September, 2004 — Opposition presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko attends a reception with Ukrainian security service leaders. One day later, he falls seriously ill. In December, Yushchenko's doctors announce that he has been poisoned by orally administered dioxin, causing severe pockmarks on his face as well as serious internal problems. Yushcheko's wife calls the poisoning an assassination attempt.
October 2004 — Presidential elections are held. The two major candidates-Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and opposition leader and former Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko-get between 39 percent and 40 percent of the vote-which requires holding a winner-take-all second round election.
November 2004 — A run-off election is held. The Central Election Commission (CEC) declares Viktor Yanukovych the winner of the elections. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) International Election Observation Mission criticizes the run-off presidential election for not meeting Council of Europe and other European standards for democratic elections. Reports of widespread and significant violations of election process, including illegal expulsion of opposition representatives from election commissions, multiple voting by people, abuse of absentee ballots, reports of coercion of votes in schools and prisons, and an abnormally high number of (easily manipulated) mobile ballot box votes. Hundreds of thousands of people gather at streets of Kiev and other cities to protest electoral fraud and express support for Yushchenko.This peaceful demonstration later comes to be known as the Orange Revolution.
The Parliament passes a resolution declaring that the election results did not represent the will of the Ukrainian people, and on December 1, it passes a vote of no-confidence in the government. Ukraine's Supreme Court annuls the CEC's announced results and mandates a repeat of the second round vote to take place on December 26.
December 2004 — Viktor Yushchenko wins the re-run elections ordered by the Supreme Court of Ukraine after the so-called Orange Revolution and is sworn in as the new president in January 2005. The OSCE Mission notes that "campaign conditions were markedly more equal, observers received fewer reports of pressure on voters, the election administration was more transparent and the media more balanced than in previous rounds…in our collective view Ukraine's elections have moved substantially closer to meeting OSCE and other European standards."
April 2005 — Cabinet approves an anti-smuggling program which aims to prevent bribery to avoid custom duties. It introduces a new concept which enables to instantly dismiss anyone who is reported to demand or receive kickbacks.
September 2005 — State Secretary Oleksandr Zinchenko holds a press conference where he declares his resignation and claims that key officials close to President Yushchenko are corrupt. His resignation and his allegations raise a political crisis that leads to the resignation or dismissal of the officials mentioned by him and the firing of Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko and her cabinet.
September 2005 — President Yushchenko appoints Yuri Yekhanurov, who was a former economist and served as a deputy prime minister with him, as prime minister.
March 2006 — Parliamentary and local elections are held. No party wins enough seats to form a one-party government.
August 2006 — Viktor Yushchenko's rival for the presidency during the 2004 elections, Viktor Yanukovych, takes office as prime minister after forming a four party coalition government.
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