On November 24, representatives of Rukh (Kostenko), the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists (KUN), the St. Andrew Ukrainian Orthodox Fraternity, and Independent Ukraine picketed the Russian Embassy in Kyiv.
The list of demands includes returning the interest bearing savings of Ukrainian depositors in the USSR Saving Bank, returning Ukraine a 16.37% share of USSR property, and returning the funds of Ukrainian legal entities, formerly kept in USSR Foreign Economic Bank accounts. Added to this are demands for compensation to former political prisoners and others who suffered reprisals. That the problem exists is obvious: otherwise Ukraine’s parliament would have long ago ratified the notorious zero option agreement. A number of experts agree to this, although most politicians do not believe this is the most pressing problem in our relations with Russia.
Nevertheless, this means, above all, that the problem should find a negotiated settlement at the level of governmental experts, rather than be solved by street rallies. The more so that Rukh and KUN, whose pickets are Verkhovna Rada deputies, seem to be capable of influencing the government. But a place where the government and experts do not work is being filled with pickets. Such actions seem to be able only to draw attention as a PR stunt which not only cannot but also should not determine official foreign policy. It also obvious that identifying the USSR with contemporary Russia is perhaps aimed at exploiting the emotional anti-Russian sentiments of a certain part of the population, hardly a thing to boast of and to build civilized policies on. If the aim was just to draw attention, we say that publicity at any cost as a rule shows only one’s own insecurity.
