latvia, lithuania and estonia regained their independence in those state borders in which they were internationally recognized before 1940. moreover, the russian federation has appropriated to itself, the district of latvia, the current pitalovsk district of the russian federation, the former abrene district, and the district of estonia, the current ivangorod as part of the russian federation together with the district - this is international recognition of the territory of estonia. by the way, this is precisely why, on august 27, 1991, the press secretary of the president of the russian federation made a statement regarding the possibility of territorial claims to former soviet republics that have borders with the soviet union, he specifically 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 to 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 management, well, you recognized the restoration of our independence, but what about the pitalovsky district, well, 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 brest agreements are so beautiful. the brest agreements are not the borders of the ukrainian ssr, 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 present the situation, as you can see 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 within those boundaries. as it exists, it 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 we cannot and will not join us, because that 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, asking questions, what should we do with kurdistan, well, if 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 this, 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

it was such an episode, which means that there was a real conflict between armenia and azerbaijan, everything else was basically based on the fact that we recognize the established borders, but there was only one union republic that would not agree with this version of the development of events, that was russia, and not ukraine, transnistria, yes, abkhazia, south ossetia, it was still 1990-1991. then the attempt to separate crimea in 1990-1993 after the election of yury myshko as the president of crimea, when in fact the head of the crimean government with ministers, and the head of the administration of the president of the arc, all of them were russian citizens, specially dispatched from moscow, exclusively for one purpose. with the aim, as we understand, to do everything possible. for crimea to become russian, well, this

happened before 2014 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-balkarians and karachay-cherkess, 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 russians, instead of somehow deciding that there is a status quo, it should be nurtured, federalism should 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 have worked 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, yes, 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, proscribed by gorbachev in the crimea, in foros at the dacha near vato, and so on and so forth, that they they just helped everyone, that is, this weak

attempt, it caused the fact that we did not receive the renewal of the soviet union, yes, that is, the communists received a certain ee... as, so to speak, a wolf ticket in the plows of society, they stopped 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 korovai as a communist, he already went with korovai as a ukrainian patriot, yes, a representative of the titular nation who is engaged state creation, that is, the communists, well , de facto, they became morally untouchable. well, the question here is that we do not 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 say again, v 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, the countries

of central asia, russia and belarus. and the question arises, what did they want to disrupt at that time, because this agreement was in any case very conditional, there was one more problem, which, i had such a problem, in simple language, that is, if they had already bothered to arrest, put gorbachev in custody, so why didn't they bother to put yeltsin in custody 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, it was the declassification of the kgb at that time, or different

ideas about what should happen next, 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 then, to what extent they could count on such concentrated efforts of power structures and the power as such in the field. 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. this was their big mistake in general, 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 from the people who covered this congress of deputies, who worked with politicians, could understand this, it was nobody, this person was known only 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 universally 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 was there really an attempt to establish. over the situation, it is in the baltic countries, there were actually hostilities there , and 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. could ask , well, you arrested him today, and tomorrow you arrest us, well, listen, we have

more control over kazakhstan or tajikistan 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. psr in moscow. before and after the meeting held in the verkhovna rada of the ussr at the time by its 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 of using them union center. do you remember, then there were s... there to create interfronts in the baltic countries, in estonia, in 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 i know, but i know for sure that the leaders of transnistria, abkhazia, south ossetia, and gauzia were there, because i know it from igor smirnov and from the first president of the self-proclaimed republic of abkhazia, vladislav ar, because they both told me about this meeting, but smiranov talked about her in 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 demanded of them that they were not 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 be no such union treaty, which strengthens the position of the nationalists , and that, in principle, at the end of the summer , a restored stability will be established and they should be. the vanguard of stability, by the way, management of the so-called pmr, it supported the gkchp, please, a few hours after the start of the meeting,

but the president of the soviet union, mikhail gorbachev, came to this meeting for a few minutes , he was there, he was in principle, as, as, as was characteristic of him , did not say anything concrete, but he demonstrated by his presence that he knows what anatoly lukyanovich is doing, that the very meeting of the presi... of the president of the soviet union with the heads of organizations whose very existence contradicted the ussr constitution, well, in the case with transnistria for sure, it was simply the teraspil district with several other districts. moldova, it says a lot, and that's 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 an alliance agreement with the leaders of the union republics. that is, how

isolated or withdrawn gorbachev was for the moment, to see how far his associates could restore him. 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 another sovereign status, yes, there were also ukrainian communists, there was, for example, the ukrainian or soviet kagibist. general marchuk is deceased, yes, he was not the head of the kgb, the kb, he was headed by general galushka, no, he was the head of the fifth department then, it seems, no longer, he was a deputy the head of the kgb of the ukrainian ssr, it seems, did not already lead the fifth round, there was kravchuk and so on, that is , there was 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 model , which model they 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 coincide , concepts yamarchuk was left in brackets here, because he began to actively participate in these events already after the declaration of independence, at the time of the declaration of independence, general tseigolushka was undoubtedly the head of the committee, and only after his departure did they begin. the opportunity for real participation in the political life of such people is general marchuk, and i would like to remind you that even after the declaration of independence there was an attempt by leonid kravchuk to send a civilian politician to the new security service of ukraine, he proposed the position of a senior citizen, not marchuk

the beginning, the verkhovna rada of ukraine simply 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 chairman of the verkhovna rada of ukraine, leonid kravchuk, the second secretary of the party of ukraine after the resignation of ivashka, and the chairman of the verkhovna rada of ukraine and stanislav gurenko, the first secretary of the party of ukraine after the resignation and vazhko, so these were three different approaches, absolutely polar, so the approach and vazhko, it was the approach of gorbachev, and vazhko to everyone was obliged by gorbachev, he became the central committee of the party of ukraine after the resignation of volodymyr shcherbytsky, to imagine the weight. those people are simply not even possible. shcherbytsky 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 was hardly 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. in a few months

before being appointed as the head of the soviet country, gorbachev also sent him on several trips. commission in the first secretary of the dnipropetrovsk party, but this was also a position that was absolutely not for his weight, and it was difficult to simply be an obedient executor of gorbachev's will, he was needed by gorbachev for one reason, reason. gorbachev understood that with the created model of the alliance agreement , he cannot rely on russia, it is in general, imagine, uh, actually the head of russia, but you cannot rely on russia, because russia is a different leader, it is a dual power... putin and beslan, well, ukrainians go to kursk, and putin goes to beslan and to the caucasus, well, roughly , yes, 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 failed this mission completely

because he could not work with the ukrainian party apparatus, the ukrainian party officials who made up the majority of the parliament. they considered him an absolute upstart, ugh, that is why he happily agreed to be elected deputy general secretary of the cpsu central committee a few months after how he was elected chairman of the verkhovna rada of ukraine. it was a fiasco for the ukrainian communists, they were in awe, but also difficult, i spoke with him after his election with the deputy general secretary of the cpsu central committee, i spoke publicly, it was an interview that was printed, and he spoke about the leadership of the communist party . the country with open hatred, as about people who did not live up to his expectations at all, he did not hide at all that his main desire was to leave ukraine, that is, to leave ukraine . the antipathy was absolutely obvious, so ivazhko was a representative of the moscow, if you like, party school, who saw ukraine simply as a support for moscow, for

gorbachev's moscow, but not moscow, he was not the only one like that, another such person was the last head of the administration of the president of the soviet union, hryhoriy rivenko, 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 gurenko. stanislav gurenko was not going either 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 all these pseudo-reforms. and he, in principle, believed. that if it is possible to 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 a favorite of this party, which feared

gorbachev, but hated him, and despised him it is difficult as the deputy general secretary of the central committee of the cpsu. all the people who were in gorbachev's orbit, from yehor ligachev, who was the head of the conservatives, to oleksandr yakovlev, who was the head of the liberals. were already not accepted for these people, if you imagine that the putsch would have come out, well, i am sure that at the next extraordinary congress of the cpsu, stanislav gurenko would have been elected as the general secretary of the central committee of the party, and ukraine would have become a real instrument of collapse reforms, because it was practically not rebuilt in ukraine, it began only after the election ivazhka and at a very slow pace, so it was a different concept, therefore gurenka was accepted by the putsch with... incredible enthusiasm, supported him fully, together with varennikov he came to kravchuk, and after

puchcho he continued to fight, literally, i was at his press conference conference, on the 25th , i think, or on august 24, when they were already burning documents, and he said that the communist party of ukraine would still remain the main one, rushino. force in our country, when i started laughing somewhere on a chair, he started shouting to me: "vitaly, stop this laughter, let's see which of us will laugh last." i say to him: "no, stanislav, i will laugh last." it's not you, it's just the age difference, what are you making up? so. well, that is, i was sure that he collapsed, but he was one step away from power in the soviet union. it's just that at one time iryna kalynets, the wife of the iconic ukrainian poet ihor kalynets, once told me that, unfortunately, we were communists at the time. then they gave the tribune, not

the power, that is, the communists went into the shadows and shadow power, when we talk about apparatuses, in business, in banks and so on, well, like gorenka, he became a big businessman, by the way, what did he do then, well, he had some financial assets, then he became the head of the committee on economy of the verkhovna rada, he... didn't work, he just wasn't in that weight anymore, 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, so that he wanted more, for him ukraine, like for ivazhko, was not something self-sufficient, these people are not in power lost in ukraine, they lost the country in which they wanted to rule, and now the third position is kravchuk, kravchuk led the sovereign of the communists, of which there 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 at once in 1900 89 or 90

, or when kravchuk argued with rukhivtsi, i came before him to the central committee of the communist party of ukraine as secretary of the central committee of the communist party of ukraine for ideology and canda already a member of the politburo of the central committee of the cpsu, to me seems to be the central committee of the communist party of ukraine, and i asked him in this interview how he... feels about the independent communist party of lithuania and the position of algert sabrazauskas, it is its leader who led the communist party of lithuania to the cpsu. and leonid makarovich, in his characteristic manner, asked why, for whom i am asking this question, what audience will read it, i told him that it is exclusively the audience of foreign journalists, and they are simply interested in his position, i would not be upset if he still reformulated there according to the old zeki rules of some sort, for what purpose are they interesting? no no no no it was just like that, what kind of audience would see it, i told him to a foreigner, well, it was true, i was doing an interview for a foreign

correspondent audience, it was like this... the first months there of the interfax agency, which at that time worked exclusively for a foreign audience , as they did not see his materials in the soviet union itself, it seems to me that this interview was not even published in any other language than english, and here too leonid kravchuk tells me, i believe that the position of algert sabrazavskyi is the only possible one position in the situation in which the lithuanian communists found themselves and 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 he tells me, and don't doubt it, it was an exchange of remarks, we didn't go back to it again, then there was just a normal conversation, changes, restructuring, publicity, well, kravchuk, how a party ideologue could talk about it for five hours, but it's not hardly any meaning, i would look at him, i

would become er... 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 at the last congress of the cpsu, i don't remember if i told about it, but we will tell you why we have already come to those moments, volodymyr ivashko accepted the post of deputy general secretary of the central committee of the cpsu. without even informing his comrades on the party central committee about it. interesting. mykhailo horvachev met with him, said that it was necessary to stop ligachev, that he he had such an assignment and accepted this candidacy with great relief. but he hated them so much that he, when i met him on the sidelines and he told me that he was davis gorbachev, that he would run for the position of deputy general secretary of the central committee of the cpsu. well,

i was as long as i was. it was 24 or 25 years old, and why didn't you join the communist party then, in order to destroy it from the inside, well, this is trolling, and we also understand that there were people who tried even at that time to make a joint career with the communists , i don't want to to name the names of those people, but they, well, they were, this is wildness, yes, because then, at the time when everyone was putting party tickets, there were those who hoped to invade the communists, well, first of all, i did not hope , secondly, i believed... that given my political views, the fact that i communicated there with academician andrii sakhora, with vyacheslav chornovol, with mykhailo horoni, when they were leaving the camps, would it be simply immoral, well, i joined the komsomol when i was in school, well, okay, but to join the communist party in adulthood, me they tried to drag me there, i spoke with relief to people who told me, why don't you write a statement to the party, i said, oh, i'm not writing anything, but you know, i have jewish origin, you somehow calmed down, i'm not anymore touched, because somehow even then

they believed... the cpsu says why don't you write a statement to the party, it's somehow difficult to say, you know, i'm an anti-communist, i'd like you to be hanged here on some kind, well, i didn't want them to be hanged, they were members of the politburo, who were not like that, not hooligans, but just ordinary officials, but i definitely did not want to be with them in the same organization never. oh, but it means that when ivazhka 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, the gorbachevs, vazhko and i, can you imagine what an incredible insight, i ran to stanislav gurenko, with whom i was on good terms, taking advantage of absolutely, i would say, diametrically opposed political views, and i told him: stanislav ivanovich, and

volodymyr antonovych will run for... the position of deputy general secretary of the central committee cpsu stanislav ivanovich says, he has turned white. well, because he understood what it means when the head of the verkhovna rada of ukraine flees ukraine a few months after being elected. ugh. and also on the day, on the days when the verkhovna rada of ukraine discussed the declaration of ukraine's sovereignty. the congress of the cpsu and this session took place at the same time. during the congress of the cpsu. the verkhovna rada of ukraine approved the declaration of state sovereignty of ukraine in the absence of all party leaders. they were at the party congress. ot. and i say to him: stanislav ivanovich, and you will run for office for the position of chairman of the verkhovna rada? well, this is a logical question. and he tells me: he was already swamped alone. and what happened? i believe that i should stay with the party, fulfill my

duties as the first secretary of the central committee. we spoke with you after my election.