Viktor Yanukovych Minister. In November 2009 Yanukovych stated that he conceded defeat only to avoid violence. "I didn't want mothers to lose their children and wives their husbands. I didn't want dead bodies from Kyiv to flow down the Dnipro. I didn't want to assume power through bloodshed." Following his electoral defeat in 2004, Yanukovych led the main opposition party against the Tymoshenko government made up of Yushchenko's Our Ukraine, the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, and Oleksandr Moroz's Socialist Party. This government was marred by growing conflict between Yushchenko and Tymoshenko. Yanukovych's Party of Regions support allowed for the establishment of Yuriy Yekhanurov's
Viktor Yanukovych the transitional government went to representatives of the right-wing extremist nationalist group Svoboda, condemned by the EU in 2012 (see Svoboda Party). Unlike his 28 February press conference, Yanukovych did not take questions from reporters. On 28 March 2014, Yanukovych asked the Party of Regions to exclude him. He was excluded on 29 March during a party congress along with several senior figures of his régime. On 13 April, Yanukovych again gave a press conference in Rostov-on-Don, this time accompanied by former Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka and former interior minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko. On 13 June 2014, Yanukovych released a video