KIEV, August 24. /TASS/. According to Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko’s allegations, "constant kowtowing to Moscow" is the main reason why for over the past 25 years of its independence Ukraine has failed to achieve the goals it had proclaimed in 1991.
"We’ve been unable to break with the past. We lost our bearings amid multi-vectored policies. We kept trying to sit on two chairs," he stated as a military formation was about to march past his podium on the occasion of the independence anniversary in Kiev. "Constant bowing to Moscow and faith in a mythical brotherhood and socialist ideology were deeply ingrained in us. They were like heavy weights attached to our ankles, preventing us from moving forward."
If Poroshenko is to be believed, it was Ukraine that initiated the elimination of the Soviet Union.
"Twenty five years ago we opted for an independent future. We brought about what Putin would later call the greatest geopolitical disaster," he claimed.
Once again Poroshenko charged Russia with placing obstacles in the way of the country’s European development trajectory. In particular, he accused Moscow of an economic blockade and of waging a war in Donbass. Over the past two and a half years Ukraine has lost 2,504 military servicemen in the east of the country, he said.
As he greeted the troops lined up for the procession, Poroshenko said the armed forces, and not the Budapest Memorandum were the best safeguard of the state’s sovereignty.
"The Ukrainian armed forces are our main shield and it is far more serious than the Budapest Memorandum," he said from a podium at Kiev’s Independence Square.
The memorandum on security guarantees following Ukraine’s accession to the nuclear weapons non-proliferation treaty, NPT (Budapest Memorandum), was signed by the leaders of Ukraine, the United States, Russia and Britain on December 5, 1994 in connection with Ukraine’s independence and asserted its status of a non-nuclear country.