well, like the posypaks, conditionally speaking, yes, that is, if the ukrainian people's republic was the foundation from which the current ukrainian independence grew, well, accordingly, this is the period of the 20s and 30s, that's how we should perceive the builders then, i labkah, of course , i say, ukrainian statehood, then it becomes much easier to evaluate kosiors, from a historical point of view you are absolutely right, but from a legal and legal point of view there is a certain problem, because... latvia, lithuania and estonia restored their independence in those state borders, in which they were internationally recognized until 1940. moreover, the russian federation appropriated a district of latvia, the current petalovsk district, of the russian federation, the former abrene county, and a district of estonia, the current ivangorod part of

the russian federation, together with the district - this is the internationally recognized territory of estonia. by the way, that is why, on august 27, 1991, when the press secretary of the president of the russian federation made a statement about the possibility of territorial claims to the former soviet republics that have borders with the soviet union, he specially emphasized that this excludes any problems with latvia, lithuania and estonia. why? because they knew for sure that it was latvia and estonia that could make claims against them, and not the other way around. that they stole someone else's territory in this situation and that this can be proven internationally in any arbitration, and in this situation latvia, lithuania and estonia could restore their independence without fearing, say, the inviolability of their borders, moreover, they could indicate in the russian leadership, well, you recognized the restoration of ours independence, but what about the pitalovsky district, well, here, but we have a completely different situation, because the borders of the ukrainian people's republic are as they were recognized.

during the agreement between the german people's republic of china and soviet russia in brest, the wonderful brest agreements are not the borders of the ukrainian rsera, they are not the borders of the modern country, and a huge part of the internationally recognized territory of ukraine is not included in these borders, so we have no other way out , at least in the current situation, as you can see the burden from the ukrainian people's republic to... the ukrainian ssr and from the ukrainian ssr to ukraine, simply because the ukrainian ssr , unlike the dpr, was a generally recognized subject of international law, simply by virtue of its membership in the united nations. and in the organization of the united nations, of course, it was in those borders, ugh, which it exists declared its independence on august 24, 1991. that is, as far as i understand, part of the former chernihiv voivodeship, which russians now call kurs. provinces

, yes, well, we can't and won't join them we will, because it would undermine the legal status of our recognized borders, as far as i understand, yes, well, we can talk about the fact that there are ethnic ukrainians there, but speaking of such an acute issue, yes, because people are discussing , they ask the question, what should we do with kurdistan, well, kurdistan is the territory on which ukrainian troops are stationed, repelling attacks. russians on ukrainian land, but this is an internationally recognized territory of the russian federation, we have nothing to do there we can, we can hold this territory until the situation stabilizes, or until the moment, if the russians succeed in knocking out the ukrainian troops there, everything in general in 1991 was absolutely obvious to everyone that the borders between the union republics, by the way, the borders between the autonomous republics that were part of of the union republics, these are conditional borders, uh, the only possibility... to survive without war

was to recognize these borders as established, and by the way , practically all former soviet republics were ready to do so, perhaps due to the difference in the conflict between armenia and azerbaijan regarding nagorno-karabakh. this was such a specific episode that started back in soviet times, when the leadership of the nagorno-karabakh autonomous region appealed to the supreme soviet of the ussr with a demand to transfer the ngo from azerbaijan to armenia. and this was such an episode, which means that there was a real conflict between armenia and azerbaijan. everything else, in principle, was based on the fact that we recognize the established border. but there was only one union republic that would not agree with this version of the development of events. it was russia, and not ukraine. transnistria, huh. abkhazia, south ossetia. it was still 1990-1991.

then an attempt to separate crimea in 1990-93 after the election of yury myshko as the president of crimea, when in fact. and the head of the government of crimea with ministers and the head of the administration of the president of the arc, all of them were russian citizens, specially sent from moscow, exclusively with one goal, with the goal, as we understand, to do everything possible so that crimea becomes russian, well, it came to 2014 year and before the war in the east of ukraine, that is, the whole problem is not ours. it is precisely in russia, from the point of view of russia it would be very beneficial to recognize the inviolability of all these borders, because russia itself has internal problems, the question arises, how logical are the borders of, say, the republic of tatarstan, 2/3 of the tatar population of the russian federation live outside borders

of the republic of tatarstan, therefore the national contests of the tatar people, if they were to begin, would certainly call into question the constancy of the borders of many subjects of the russian federation. buryats living in three subjects of the federation at the same time, disconnected from each other. kabardino-balkars and karachay-circassians, each of these peoples is a relative of the other in another republic, but for some unknown reason they live in the united republics, where they are not related peoples. i can cite a huge number of such examples in russia. but the russians, instead of somehow deciding that there is a status quo, it must be nurtured, federalism must be developed there. on democracy, relations with the former soviet republics, followed the path of expansion, what we see is a confirmation of this course? no, they probably couldn't work in any other way, because that's how it is embedded in them, yes, that is, the essence of their existence is the deployment of expansion, so in order to try

to maintain or observe the so-called imperial internal stability in this way , but if we have already talked about the year 1991, well, it is a paradox of time. one gets the impression that this is an incomplete gkchp, the one that tried to seize and hold power, imprisoned gorbachev in the crimea, in foros at the dacha under custody and so on and so forth, that they just helped everyone, that is, this weak attempt, it caused the fact that we did not get a renewed soviet union, yes, that is, the communists got a certain eh... as, so to speak, a wolf ticket in the eyes of society, their ceased to perceive, and a certain initiative of the political plan appeared among the local communists, who were no longer ready to submit themselves, the same kravchuk, yes, that is, he did not go with the cow as a communist, he already went with the cow as a ukrainian patriot , yes,

a representative of the titular nation, who is engaged state creation, i.e. the communists, well, de facto, they became morally untouchable. well, the question here is that we don't even fully understand what actually happened on august 24, 19-23, 1991 in moscow. officially, it seems that on august 24 or 25, the new union treaty was to be signed, but the question arises, who would sign it? it was not going to be signed by all, uh, union republics, at least in ukraine no one was ready to sign some union treaty there, that is, there was a large number of er... soviet republics, which was not going to join it, these were latvia, lithuania, estonia, their independence at that moment was not recognized by the soviet union, it happened only after, georgia, ugh, armenia, azerbaijan, because the parameters of the country were not defined there related to the karabakh

conflict, and both republics were not satisfied with the actions of the union center, the republic of moldova, ukraine, that's how many, eight, yes. well, who was left then? russia and the countries of central asia? ugh. and plus armenia. no, armenia was not going to sign, because i am still once i say, she had a problem with karabakh. if she had signed the alliance agreement, this problem would have been recognized by her as existing, they did not sign. plus belarus. central asian countries, russia and belarus. and the question arises, what they wanted to break then, because this agreement was. in any case, very conditional, there was one more problem, which, here i had such a problem, here in simple language, that is, if they had already bothered to arrest and detain gorbachev, why did they not bother to detain the same yeltsin and not

only yeltsin, that is, well, the coup implies some kind of systematicity, this was not done here, that's how they expelled the general, it seems. to kyiv and so on, they sent other emissaries, the state security committee cells tried to work on the ground, but no simultaneous arrests were made, that is... why didn't they go for it, why didn't they stop all this, this is the declassification of the kgb at that time time or, or different ideas about what should happen next, uh, here, i think, in the state security committee itself, but there were different factions, firstly, secondly, it is not very clear how the vertical of power obeyed them at that time, how much they could count on such concentrated efforts of power structures and the power as such in the localities. they were afraid of an open confrontation with the leadership of the russian

federation for one simple reason. boris yelson was the universally elected president of russia. in general, this was their big mistake, that they allowed elections. gennady yanaev was not only not the universally elected president of the soviet union, he was not the president of the soviet union at all. it was a person about whom the majority of the population of the soviet union learned on august 19, 1991 . i well remember the election of gennady yanaev as the vice-president of the soviet union, i was then at the congress of people's deputies of the soviet union, and i then asked mikhail gorbachev why he proposed this candidacy in the first place, none of us human beings, who covered this congress of deputies, who worked with politicians, could not understand this, it was nobody, this person was known exclusively for his tendency to alcoholism, but everyone says, that boris yeltsin was prone to alcoholism, but boris yeltsin really was a person who could... drink quite a lot of alcohol, but along with this, boris

yeltsin's interest in life was not vodka, power, but gennadiy yanaev's interest in life was vodka , not power, it was, it is, these are different things, agree, when vodka is a hobby for you, well, for many people in not only russia, vodka can be a hobby, but when vodka is a meaning, for the sake of which you achieve some kind of success , you can hardly manage anything effectively, and everyone knew perfectly well what it was no one. and nothing, and therefore this person could be afraid that if he gave the order to arrest the popularly elected president of russia, it could lead to greater excesses than it would seem, and could cause a rather negative reaction from the leaders of other republics, who were also presidents, who were ready to somehow cooperate with the gkchp, but in conditions where they were sure of their own inviolability, because where there was really an attempt to establish... over the situation, it was in the baltic countries, there were actually hostilities, both in tallinn and in riga , and in vilnius, there

special forces units were already there, they stormed the hotel where the latvian government was, they did it there, because they believed that these were foreign people, the same pskov division, yes, that these were foreign people, they were the leaders of popular fronts, but this nomenclature, yeltsin was a representative of this nomenclature, nazarbayev or karimov, or niyazov. you could ask, well, you arrested him today, and tomorrow you arrest us, well, listen, we have more control over kazakhstan or takmenistan than you do, and it could be us alone moment, another moment - the role of mikhail gorbachev, here we are talking about the arrest of mikhail gorbachev. in the summer of 1991, i met with the first president of the self-proclaimed transnistrian moldavian republic , igor smirnov, in one of the hotels of the central committee. cpsu in moscow, before and after the meeting held in

the verkhovna rada of the ussr by its then head , anatoly lukyanov. at this meeting were the heads of transnistria, abkhazia, south ossetia, gagauzia, and i think there are certain territories there that were considered such territories, let's say, with the possibility their use by the union center. do you remember that there were attempts then. to create interfronts in the baltic countries, in estonia, latvia, lithuania, that is, there was and was such a group of people, i will not be responsible for the full composition, because i simply do not know it, but i know for sure that the leaders of transnistria of abkhazia, south ossetia, and gauzia were there, because i know this from igor smirnov and from the first president of the self-proclaimed republic of abkhazia, vladyslav ar, because they both told me about this meeting, but smiran talked about her in more detail, arjima simply informed me that he was at this meeting. not within reach after we met with them in moscow. smirnov told me that lukyanov

required them to be ready at the end of the summer, because at the end of the summer a normal constitutional order would be established in the russian federation in the soviet union, in general, that there would not be any of this union treaty, which strengthens the position of the nationalists , and that, in principle, at the end of the summer there will be restored stability, and they should be. the vanguard of stability, by the way, the leadership of the so-called pmr, it supported the gkchp, please, a few hours after the start of the meeting, but for this meeting for a few minutes after... the president of the soviet union, mikhail gorbachev, he was there, he was in in principle, as was typical of him, he did not say anything specific, but he demonstrated by his presence that he knows what anatoly lukyanovich is doing, that, well, the very meeting of the president of the soviet union with the heads of organizations whose very existence contradicted the constitution

ussr, well, in the case of transnistria, for sure, it was simply the teraspil district with several other districts. moldova, it says a lot, and that is why after that i always had questions about what it was in principle, and to what extent the entire leadership of the soviet union, led by mikhail gorbachev, was ready to sign a union treaty with the leaders of the union republics, that is, how gorbachev was isolated or self-removed for the moment to see how far his associates could recover. pseudostability, finally, simply so that we closed this extremely, in principle , fundamental moment, yes, but one of many, yes, when we talk about the role of ukrainian elites, we understand that apart from the street, apart from ukrainians on the streets, apart from our population and in general, well, the desire to get that or other sovereign status, there

were also ukrainian communists, there was, for example, the ukrainian or soviet kagybist. general marchuk is late, yes, he was not the head of the kgb, the kbv was headed by general galushko, no, he was the head of the fifth administration then, it seems, no longer, he was a deputy the head of the kgb of the ukrainian ssr, it seems, did not already head the fifth, there was kravchuk and so on, that is, it was not and it was difficult, in the end, that is, there were a number of figures of the communist system, yes, but who in principle, as far as we understand, they wanted to create a certain the model they model wanted to create. named a few names, each of these people had different ideas about what could happen next, i can say this absolutely clearly, because i discussed this model with each of them, that is, the concept of kravchuk, marchuk or ivashko, that is, they did not coincided concept yamarchuk was generally left out here because he began to actively participate in these events already after the declaration of independence, at

the time of the declaration of independence the undoubted head of the committee was general zagolushka, and only after his departure did they begin. an opportunity for real participation in the political life of such people, general marchuk, and i would like to remind you that even after the declaration of independence , there was an attempt by leonid kryvchuk to send a civilian politician to the new security service of ukraine, he offered the position of a holder senior, not morchuk at the beginning, simply the verkhovna rada of ukraine did not agree with this candidacy, so there were also disturbances there, but if we talk about these main... people in reality, here is volodymyr ivashko, the first secretary of the party of ukraine, the head of the verkhovna rada of the council of ukraine, leonid kravchuk, the second secretary of the party of ukraine after the resignation of ivashko, and the chairman of the verkhovna rada of ukraine and stanislav gurenko, the first secretary of the party of ukraine after the resignation of vazhko, so these were three different approaches, absolutely polar, so the approach of vazhko, it was gorbachev's approach, and vazhko

owed it to gorbachev, who became the central committee of the party of ukraine after the resignation of volodymyr shcherbytsky, to imagine the weight. people is simply not even possible. shcherbytskyi was a person who applied for the post of general secretary of the central committee of the cpsu, one of the main associates of leonid breshnyi. and it was difficult to be a person who was not known even in the ukrainian party apparatus. his main position in the ukrainian party operation was the secretary of the kharkiv regional party committee, one of the secretaries. then he was sent to work in afghanistan. a few months before his appointment as the head of the soviet country, gorbachev also sent several. place in the first secretary of the dnipropetrovsk party, but it was also a position not befitting his weight, and he was simply an obedient executor of gorbachev's will, he was needed by gorbachev for one reason, the reason, gorbachev understood that when creating this model of the alliance agreement, he did not can rely on russia, it’s generally, imagine, ugh, actually the head

of russia, but you can’t rely on russia, so that russia is a different leader, it is a dual power type. putin and beslan, well, the ukrainians are going to kursk and putin is going to beslan and to the caucasus, well, that’s about it, and he decided that the main support of moscow would be soviet ukraine, and this soviet ukraine should be led by a loyal, obedient person, and it is difficult to failed the mission completely, because he could not work with the ukrainian party apparatus, ukrainian party officials, who made up the majority in the parliament. they considered him an absolute upstart, huh, that's why vashko happily agreed to the election of zalivanka, the former first secretary of the kyiv party, so it was one such group of people. the gorbachevs, who wanted ukraine to occupy a prominent place in the renewed union. next was stanislav gorenko. stanislav gurenko was also not going to fight for the independence of ukraine.

his idea was completely different. he was going to head the cpsu. he was not going to be the executor of mikhail gorbachev's will. he believed that he would be able to take revenge, which volodymyr shcherbytsky did not take, that he would be able to stop it. here are all these pseudo-reforms, and he basically believed that if he succeeded get rid of gorbachev, the next candidate for the post of general secretary of the central committee of the cpsu is him. this was obvious at the last congress of the cpsu. grurenko was the favorite of this party, which feared gorbachev, but hated him, and despised and hated, as the deputy general secretary of the central committee of the cpsu, all the people who were in gorbachev's orbit from yegor. who was the head of the conservatives, to oleksandr yakovlev, who was the head of the liberals, even for these people it was incomprehensible if you imagine that the putsch would have come out, well, i am sure that

at the next extraordinary congress of the cpsu, stanislav horenka would be elected general secretary of the central committee of the party, and ukraine would become a real instrument of the collapse of reforms, because there was practically no restructuring in ukraine, it began only after. at a very slow pace, so it was a different concept, therefore gurenko accepted puch with incredible enthusiasm, supported him fully, together with varennikov he came to kravchuk, and after puch he continued to rage, literally, i was at his press conference, 25, it seems august 24, when they were already burning the documents. said that the communist party of ukraine will still remain the main, driving force in our country, and when i started laughing somewhere on the stool, he started shouting at me: vitaly,

stop this laughter, let's see who among us will laugh last, i tell him no, stanislav , i will have the last laugh, not you, it's just the age difference, what are you making up, that is, i was sure that he collapsed, but he was one step away from power in the soviet union. just at one time, iryna kalynets, a well-known iconoclastic ukrainian dissident, yes, the wife, an iconoclastic ukrainian ukrainian poet ihor kalynets, she once told me that, unfortunately, we then, the communists, gave away the tribune and not the power, that is, the communists went into the shadows and into the shadow power, when we talk about apparatuses, business, banks and so on, well, yakerenka, he became a big businessman, by the way, what did he do for a living. then, well, he had some financial assets, then he became the head of the economy committee of the verkhovna rada, but he did not go anywhere, he was simply no longer in this weight, but he had a business, he was quite

a serious player at his level, not at this level, i say again, this story undermined him, because he wanted more, for him ukraine, as for ivashko, was not something self-sufficient, these people did not lose power in ukraine, they lost the country , in which they wanted to dominate, and now the third position is kravchuk. kravchuk led the communist sovereign, who were few, people who were ready for ukrainian independence under their own authority, for whom ukraine was an end in itself, and by the way, again, i learned about this in 1900 89 or 90, or then , when kravchuk debated with the movement, i came to him to the central committee of the comptium of ukraine as the secretary of the central committee of ukraine for ideology, and already a member of the politburo of the central committee of the cpsu. the central committee of the communist party of ukraine, and in this interview i asked him how he feels about the independent communist party of lithuania and the position of algert sabrazauskas, its leader, who

led the communist party of lithuania out of the cpsu. and leonid makarovich, in his characteristic manner, asked why, for whom i ask this question, which audience will read it. i told him that this is exclusively for the audience of foreign journalists, and they are simply interested in his position, i would not i would be blown away if he was still like that. for what purpose to be interested no-no-no, it was just like that, what kind of audience would see it, and i told him to a foreigner, well, it was true, i was doing an interview for a foreign correspondent audience, it was like that in the first months of the interfax agency there , which at that time worked for a foreign audience exclusively, ugh, which did not see his material materials in the soviet union itself, it seems to me that... and here leonid kravchuk tells me: i believe that the position of algert sabrazavskyi is the only possible position in

the situation in which they found themselves. the lithuanian communists fully share this position, i look at him, yes, well, he knew that i, so i already worked in the youth of ukraine, i was a supporter of the movement and so on, and he, i tell him, i think we will work together, leonid makarovich, and he tells me, and don’t doubt it, it was an exchange of remarks, we didn’t return to it again, then there was just the usual conversation, changes, restructuring, publicity, well, karabchuk, as a party ideologist, could have 5 hours talk about it but this it didn't matter anymore, i looked at him, everything became clear to me, everything became clear, and there was a moment between us when, i believe, it was a decisive moment in the future, and in my career as well, on the last of to the leadership of the cpsu, i don't remember if i told about it, but let's tell you what

volodymyr got to those moments. agreed to the position of deputy general secretary of the central committee of the cpsu without even informing his comrades on the party's central committee. interesting. mykhailo horvachev met with him and said that it was necessary to stop ligachev, that he has such an assignment, and vashko was relieved to accept this candidacy, but he hated them so much that when i met him on the sidelines and he told me that he was davis gorbachev and he would be. to the position of deputy general secretary of the central committee of the cpsu, well, i was when i was 24 or 25 years old, and why didn’t you join the communist party then in order to destroy it internally, well, this is trolling, and we understand that there were people who even at that time they tried to make a joint career with the communists, i didn't i want to name people, but they were, well , they were, this is wildness, yes, because then, at the time when everyone was putting party tickets, there were those who hoped for another

invasion. well, first of all, i didn't expect it, and secondly, i believed that, taking into account my political views, the fact that i talked there with academician andrii sakhara, with vyacheslav chornovol, with mykhailo horyn, when they left the camps, that it would be it's just immoral, well, i joined the komsomol when i was in school, well, okay, but joining the communist party in my adulthood they tried to drag me there, i was relieved to tell people who told me, why don't you write a statement to the party, i said, oh, i 'm not writing anything, and you know, i have... origin, you somehow calmed down, they did not touch me anymore, because somehow even then it was believed that there was no need for too many jews in the communist parties, well, thanks to this origin, it was possible to get away from all these pressures, because when a member of the politburo of the cpsu tells you, why don't you write a statement to the party, it's kind of hard to say, you know, i'm an anti-communist, i'd like to see you hanged here on some, well, i didn't want them to be hanged, they were members of the politburo who were not like that.

hooligans, but just ordinary officials, but i definitely did not want to be in the same organization with them, never, oh, but it means that when vazhka told me this, i mean in such youthful enthusiasm that i know something that no one knows, well that is, we know, we know the three of us, it is difficult for gorbachev and i, can you imagine what an incredible insight, i ran to stanislav gorenko, with whom i had a good relationship, profiting from absolutely, i would say, diametrically opposing political views. and i tell him: stanislav ivanovich, and volodymyr antonovych will run for the position of deputy general secretary of the central committee of the cpsu. stanislav ivanovych says, he turned white, well, because he understood what it means when the head of the verkhovna rada of ukraine flees ukraine a few months after his election. ugh. and also on the day, on the days when the educated council of ukraine discussed the declaration of

ukraine's sovereignty. the congress of the cpsu and this session took place.