Kateryna Mykhaylivna Yushchenko[a] (born Catherine Claire Chumachenko,[b] September 1, 1961) is an American-born Ukrainian politician and philanthropist who was the First Lady of Ukraine from 2005 to 2010.

Yushchenko's father, Mykhailo Chumachenko, was born in the village of Zaitsivka [uk], Kharkiv Oblast in 1917 to a large family of farmers.

Along with many other young women of her village, Sofia Chumachenko was taken to Nazi Germany at the age of 14 to serve as a slave laborer, shortly after the invasion of the Soviet Union.

Kateryna Yushchenko’s parents met in Germany, married, and gave birth to her sister, Lydia, in 1945.

In 1956, the Chumachenko family immigrated to the United States on an invitation from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Chicago.

Kateryna Yushchenko was born Catherine Claire Chumachenko in Chicago to immigrants from the Left-bank Ukraine.

In 1993, she joined KPMG Peat Marwick/Barents Group as a consultant in its Bank Training Program and Country Manager, where she met Viktor Yushchenko, whom she subsequently married.

[3] 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.