The article is devoted to the analysis of the presidential elections in Ukraine in 2019, which became a stage in the development of the Ukrainian political system and outlined the main political trends in the political life of Ukraine under President V. Zelensky. Since 2014, the country's leadership has been building a confrontational model of foreign policy towards Russia, which was reflected in the consolidation of the status of the Russian Federation as an aggressor country at the level of national strategic planning documents because of its, as the Ukrainian leadership postulated, interference in internal Ukrainian affairs. The 2019 presidential elections marked a certain milestone in the prolongation of Kiev's anti-Russian policy. The head of the state election also made it possible to compile a panorama of the political groups and parties existing in the country, depending on their attitude towards Russia. The article examines the role and place of the Russian factor in the programs of the leading candidates for the presidency of Ukraine, including the formats they offer for building relations with Russia and models for resolving the conflict in Donbass. They are united into four groups: advocating peace based on existing agreements, supporting a peaceful settlement of the conflict with a revision of the Minsk agreements, pursuing a tough line in relations with Russia and the transition to a new format for resolving the conflict in Donbass, as well as supporters of war until a victorious end for Ukraine. Based on the analyzed sources, a conclusion is drawn about the similarity of the foreign policy programs of Petro Poroshenko and Vladimir Zelensky and the continuity of the country's anti-Russian foreign policy after 2019 – with a certain transformation of this policy.
Ukraine; Russia; foreign policy of Ukraine; Ukrainian presidential elections.