Hundreds of thousands put their lives on the line, and more than 100 died, to put an end to decades of corrupt, oligarchic rule in the Ukrainian revolution of 2014. The question facing Petro Poroshenko, the man who seems poised to win the Ukrainian presidency on May 25, is whether all their efforts will prove to have been in vain.
A self-made man whose estimated net worth (according to Forbes Ukraine) is $1.6 billion, Poroshenko, 49, is a product of the chaos that has reigned during the country's 22 years of independence. Like Russian President Vladimir Putin, he is a black belt in judo, though his oily and wily tactics contrast sharply with Putin's strong-arm approach.
Poroshenko had the good fortune to earn a degree in international economics in 1989, just when the Soviet Union was trying to liberalize its economy. He says he started out in business advising Soviet factories on building relationships with foreign partners and made his first million dollars in 1991 speculating in black pepper. He laid the foundation of his current fortune by buying up bankrupt candy factories and, with his partners, building up a bus assembly business. Last year, Poroshenko's Roshen corporation was the 18th biggest confectionery producer in the world with net sales of $1.276 billion, according to Candy Industry magazine.