Condescending and humiliating attitudes toward Ukrainians from Soviet officials existed long before the current war and were not much different from the rhetoric and behavior of modern Russian politicians, said Andrii Veselovskyi, adviser to the director of the National Institute for Strategic Studies, UkrInform reports.
“Humiliating, rude, and arrogant”: diplomat recalls how Moscow treated Ukraine even in Soviet times
“Russians behaved the same way back then — humiliatingly, rudely, arrogantly, and with a sense of superiority toward us. None of us had any doubt that it was better not to have anything in common with that structure and those people,” the diplomat recalls.
Even in the Soviet Foreign Ministry they dreamed of freedom
Veselovskyi recalled that in 1989, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR, in his view about 90% of employees wanted an independent Ukraine.
He said the ministry at the time was small, about 50 staff members, along with three cleaners and two drivers. Everyone knew each other and, as he put it, they were all “in the same pot.”
“Hennadiy Udovenko, who was Ukraine’s representative to the United Nations at the time and later became foreign minister, never seemed like someone who wanted to preserve Soviet power,” Veselovskyi says.
He added that he also knew officials in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union who oversaw the ministry.
According to him, formally they were “flesh of the party,” some feared it more and some less, but all sought autonomy and independence because “we lived under the direct control of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR.”
Earlier, Lavrov said that Russia will continue achieving its goals “on the ground,” as the Kyiv "regime" is not ready to end the war. His statement came the same day after the attack on the Ukrainian capital with nearly 20 Shahed and several new Izdeliye-30 cruise missiles with an advanced 800 kg warhead.
