Viktor Yanukovych Donetsk during 2004 Ukrainian presidential election, when he referred to the electorate of his opponent Viktor Yushchenko as "goats that make our lives difficult" ("эти козлы, которые нам мешают жить"). Later, during the TV debates with Yushchenko he explained, "I called goats the traitors. According to the Bible, the goat is a traitor, and there are also rams, sheep." After his February 2014 escape to Russia, during his 28 February press-conference in Rostov-on-Don, Yanukovych said, "Ukraine is our strategic partner" (misspeaking and confusing Ukraine with Russia). During the same press-conference he also broke a pen in an emotional outburst, while
Viktor Yanukovych with them. On 15 December 1967, at the age of 17, Yanukovych was sentenced to three years incarceration for participating in a robbery and assault. On 8 June 1970 he was convicted for a second time on charges of assault. He was sentenced to two years of imprisonment and did not appeal against the verdict. Decades later, Yanukovych characterized his arrests and incarceration as "mistakes of youth". In 1971, Yanukovych married Lyudmyla (née Nastenko), a niece of Yenakiyeve city judge Oleksandr Sazhyn. In July 1974, Yanukovych enrolled at the Donetsk Polytechnic Institute. In 1976, as a second-year student, he was