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Kateryna Mikhailovna Yushchenko-Chumachenko is the current and second wife of Ukrainian politician Viktor Yushchenko. She is a Ukrainian-American born in Chicago and a former official with the U.S. State Department, where she worked as a special assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs.
Opponents of her husband Viktor Yushchenko have criticized her for remaining a U.S. citizen. During the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election campaign, Yushchenko-Chumachenko was accused of exerting the influence of the U.S. government on her husband's decisions, as an employee of the U.S. government or even a CIA agent. She had earlier been accused by Russian television journalist Mikhail Leontyev of leading a U.S. project to help Yushchenko seize power in Ukraine; in January 2002, she won a libel case against him. Ukraine's pro-government Inter television channel repeated Leontyev's allegations in 2001, but in January 2003 she won a libel case against the channel as well.
The Yushchenkos have three children together: two daughters and one son.
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