From The Russo-Ukraine War: The Return of History, by Serhii Plokhy (W. W. Norton, 2023), Kindle pp. 56-57:
In the fall of 1999, as Yeltsin was getting ready to step down and promote Putin as his successor, the president of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma, was preparing to run for a second term. During his first term he had managed to stabilize the Ukrainian economy by launching large-scale privatization and working closely with Western donors, especially the International Monetary Fund. Kuchma had also brought Ukrainian politics into temporary equilibrium by adopting a new constitution that introduced a power-sharing agreement between president and parliament. Yet the system was anything but stable, as the two political actors did not agree on the political and economic direction of the country. The global financial crisis of 1997 and the Russian default of 1998 hurt the Ukrainian economy, enhancing the position of the communists as the most powerful parliamentary faction. In the parliamentary elections of 1998 they gained 25 percent of the popular vote. The national democrats, organized in Rukh and led by the former dissident Viacheslav Chornovil, came second with 10 percent of the vote, while the Kuchma-backed People’s Democratic Party garnered a mere 5 percent.
In 1999 Kuchma was pretty much in the same place as Yeltsin on the eve of his reelection in 1996. He decided to take a page from Yeltsin’s electoral campaign, presenting himself as the only force capable of stopping a communist return to power. This stance appealed to the new industrial bosses in eastern Ukraine, who had managed to privatize former state-owned enterprises on Kuchma’s watch and with his assistance. Electors in the western regions, who cherished Ukrainian independence, oriented themselves toward Europe and against a return to the USSR.
Using his control of state-run media and obtaining support from media controlled by the regional bosses and oligarchs who had emerged during his first term, Kuchma managed to carry both eastern and western Ukraine, losing only in the center, where the countryside was still controlled by holdovers of the collective farm system. He gained 58 percent of the popular vote versus 39 percent for his opponent, the Ukrainian communist leader Petro Symonenko. Like Yeltsin, Kuchma decided to use his victory over the communists to push market reforms forward. He was luckier than his Russian counterpart, as there was no Asian financial crisis to interfere with his plans.
Upon his reelection, Kuchma initiated a new course toward integrating Ukraine into European political and economic structures. He appointed Viktor Yushchenko, the young head of Ukraine’s national bank who was strongly supported by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as the new prime minister. In slightly more than a year, Yushchenko and his ally Yulia Tymoshenko, who became deputy prime minister in the new government, managed to stop the economic decline, increase revenues by closing loopholes for big business and the newly emergent oligarchic clans, and repay unpaid wages, salaries, and pensions. The economy began a rapid recovery led by the metallurgical and mining industries, which doubled their exports. Economic growth would continue well into the first decade of the new millennium.
Far Outliers 