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VIKTOR YANUKOVYCH: The Soviet industrial manager ran for president in 2004 with the backing of the Kremlin and then-Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma. He was initially declared the winner but opposition forces charged the vote was rigged. Hundreds of thousands of protesters blockaded the capital of Kiev in the Orange protests and the courts threw out the election.

After Yanukovych lost to former central banker Viktor Yushchenko in a revote, he became the leader of the opposition. His Party of Regions regained control of the legislature and he was named prime minister in August 2006, only to return to the opposition after a December 2007 election.

An awkward, gaffe-prone speaker, he once called the people of one Ukrainian city "part of the genocide of the nation," when he apparently meant gene pool. Yanukovych backs Moscow on issues ranging from trade to security, but owes his political resurrection to his dogged determination and his oligarch friends who control the mines and factories of Ukraine's Russian-speaking east. He is 59.