he was afraid that the resulting crisis would cause the disintegration of the country, intensifying movements for certain regions of Ukraine to join other countries. On 25 September 2009, Kravchuk declared during an interview with the newspaper Den that he left SDPU(o) and became unaffiliated again. He explained this based on the fact that his former party decided to join the Bloc of Left and Center-left Forces to run for the 2010 presidential elections. He was indignant due to the fact that the political council of the party decided to accomplish that behind the closed doors in non-democratic order. He called it [the] "block as the artificial union without any perspectives". Kravchuk endorsed Yulia Tymoshenko during the 2010 presidential elections campaign. During the 2010 election campaign, he accused incumbent president Viktor Yushchenko of having "turned into Yanukovych's aide. He has actually turned into an also-ran. His task is to slander Yulia Tymoshenko every day and prevent her from winning [the presidential elections]". Kravchuk explained his shift in support from Yanukovych to Tymoshenko was caused because he felt Yanukovych "turned his back" on all the issues Kravchuk wanted him to address as president: the Ukrainian language, culture, and the Holodomor. "Only the dead or the stupid do not change their views", he stated in December 2009 when he also voiced the opinion that voting for Yanukovych in the second round of the 2010 elections would indicate an anti-Ukrainian position. In July 2020, Kravchuk was chosen to represent Ukraine at the Trilateral Contact Group (formed to facilitate a diplomatic resolution to the war in the Donbass region), being appointed to replace Leonid Kuchma. He maintained this position until February 2022. Death and funeral Kravchuk had heart surgery in June 2021. He was reportedly in ill health by this time. On 29 June 2021, the first president of Ukraine missed the solemn meeting of the Verkhovna Rada on the occasion of Constitution Day due to heart surgery. After surgery, the head of the Trilateral Contact Group was placed in intensive care and connected to a ventilator. In July, the media reported that Leonid Kravchuk had been in intensive care for a month. On 10 May 2022, a family member told the Ukrainian News Agency that Kravchuk had died at the age of 88 in Germany, after a long illness. His death was also confirmed by unnamed officials in Kyiv, as well as Andriy