"Russia died"

On the eve of the decade of Maidan, the second president of the country (1994-2005) Leonid Kuchma presented the updated book "Ukraine - NOT RUSSIA"

The book is called “Ukraine is not Russia. Twenty years later. " As Daria Olifer, press secretary of the presidential fund Leonid Kuchma “Ukraine”, explained on her Facebook page, is “an updated version of the first edition. A significant part of the text of the first edition contained historical parallels and the author’s argument, with which Leonid Kuchma tried to explain to the Russian audience, why Ukraine is not Russia. There is no longer any addressing to the Russians in the new edition. Attempts to convey the truth to them were in vain. ”

Fixed to believe

There are also differences. The first work was published in Russian, in the Moscow Publishing House "Time", a circulation of 10,000 copies. The current work-in Ukrainian-published the Kiev Publishing House of the Adef-Ukraine, which is not listed in the top known, but has a gallery of gift folios, from the "illustrated history of Ukraine" Mikhail Grushevsky to a biographical essay about Vladimir Shcherbitsky, first secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine. The first work was sold in all the country's bookstores, the printed circulation of the updated version is intended, first of all, for the defense forces of the country, the largest libraries, universities, central and regional authorities. And for the rest of the readers, they promise to lay out the electronic version in the near future.

At the presentation, Leonid Danilovich explained how exactly he processed the text. He reduced or deleted the sections that had “current relevance on the border of millennia”, and now it has already lost it, and added a italics to each chapter of the 2003 model, without touching its actual content.

The cover of the book is also edited. From the original, where Leonid Kuchma is in the prime of age, in a white shirt with a tie, sits in a meadow full of cornflowers, there was no trace left. The current background is a smoky sky and ruins. In the firefighter’s mitten - a charred copy of “Ukraine is not Russia”. Photo documentary. He made it on January 14, 2023, in the Dnieper, on the Victory embankment, at the very multi-storey building where the Russian X-22, Igor Gitalo, the head of the operational and coordination center of the State Service of the State Service for Emergency Situations hit. Some of the residents-perhaps the factory workers of Yuzhmash, kept it in the home library ... Memories of the Dnieper and the native factory that produced rockets have always been nostalgic-light for Kuchma-Politics. This flew in them. Life is cooler than any literature.

In 2018, after the departure “to rest” from the post of head of the Ukrainian delegation in the tripartite contact group in negotiations in Minsk (how long it was!) Leonid Danilovich avoided publicity and, it seemed, did not experience his own absence in television.

Journalists who at one time awarded the second president with the title of “Father of Ukrainian Corruption” did not take into account, other political players were no longer awarded him.

But at the beginning of the Great War, March 10, 2022, then the 84-year-old Kuchma himself reminded himself, having recorded the appeal that began as follows: “Ukrainians! My relatives! " And the words sounded sincerely.

“I stay at home in Ukraine. Because we are all on our native land, there is no other. And we will protect it until the very victory, ”he promised. - Without dividing into party columns, without personal interests and old squabbles. Uniting around the flag, army, president. Ukraine is not Russia. And he will never become Russia. Do not wait. And at the address of the Russian Federation I will only say that I join the words of my compatriots, who unanimously say: be you cursed! ”

And now-the book-revision of their own illusions including. Fixed to believe.

Verbatim

Several quotes of new comments in italics.

“Who do they dare to blame Nazism, of a mania of national exclusivity? The country, which was first called to the decisive resistance of the dictatorship in 2013 by Mustafa Nayyem ( Ukrainian journalist and civil activist, subsequently politician. - Approx. Auth. ) - Afghan? In which the phrase "Good Vechora, Mi Z Ukrainian!" In 2022, Vitaly Kim ( head of the regional state administration of Nikolaev. - Approx. Aut. )-Korean? In which, I am sure, a 16-year-old Ukrainian hero Tigran Oganesyan will remain a symbol of partisan resistance to the invaders? In which the highest and most responsible positions in the government and parliament are occupied by people of the Russian, Belarusian, Armenian, Georgian, Buryat, even African origin? In which, in the end, for a long time, the Jews were simultaneously held by the posts of the president, the Prime Minister and one of the opposition leaders? "

“The Russian government clearly went through the patterns that I described with anxiety in this book twenty years ago.

Believe me, I did not prompted the thesis to Putin. I just felt it all long before the theory of the newly made “historian” began to be embodied in the form of missile strikes. The monster finally hatched from the ugly. But the poisonous gases of stupidity and hatred have been scattered in the Russian air for a long time. And the most difficult problem is that it is in this “atmosphere” that the Russians breathe easier and pleasant than everything. ”

“Russia, which we knew, is an ordinary, though“ other ”neighbor - that Russia died. Russia died along with hundreds of tortured, raped, connected and shot in the back of the head of the ordinary inhabitants of our Buch, Beardians and Gosteli ...

The Russia, regarding which we had some other illusions, that Russia died. But another Russia remained. Located nearby. Bristled with a weapon. Who will not forget anything and will not learn anything. Which we will need to understand and calculate if we do not want to count. But first, we must win the decisive battles, throw the invaders from our land, become a member of NATO. ”

“The West has not seen us. Instead, “looked through the pink glasses” at Putin. This is not my metaphor, this is a direct quote from the newly declassified documents that appeared in the British press in the summer of 2023 ... Two decades ago, the West, inspired by returning the “chessboard” of an understandable and (as it seemed) predicted player, wanted to see in him not only the usual opponent, and even an allied, for example, against Islamic terrorists. Which in the end is known. "

Orange pages

It is difficult not to pay attention to the date of the presentation. It took place on the eve of the tenth anniversary of Euromaidan, the day of dignity and freedom.

Kuchma himself has no reason to love the Maidan. Especially the first, 2004, which entered the textbooks of history as an orange revolution. It is enough to recall the many thousands of the “Ukraine without kuchma!” Action, which has swept through the country, the elections with falsifications in favor of Yanukovych, on which the departing head of state, the mysterious poisoning of Viktor Yushchenko, the main square of the capital, which flourished with orange flags, scarves, balls, and ... scarecrow kuchma. In the prisoner robe, in a cage. On the gallows.

Could he then use power and disperse the protesters - like him, a temper to a temper, the environment suggested in both ears, and Moscow persistently recommended? Yes.

But the “father of Ukrainian corruption”, “strangor of democracy”, “multi -vector” president of Ukraine did not make a fatal mistake. I did not shed blood. Accepted by Yanukovych’s protrusion.

Although I did not forget anything to anyone, which I wrote a little later in the book “After the Maidan”, when the “orange” government of Yushchenko began to tear out internal contradictions, and the Kremlin would remind that the European and Euro -Atlantic choice of Ukrainians would not tolerate. Notes of the president to a large extent moralizing (to the new "Maidan" authorities) and understanding (the difficulties of the "main strategic partner", the Russian Federation, in coexistence with the rest of the world).

A little quotes from the book “After the Maidan. Notes of the president. 2005–2006 ".

“A wide coalition and only it can save the country. The Party of Regions shows real state responsibility, real patriotism, when it offers just such an option. ”

“Putin is criticized for a rollback from Yeltsin democracy, but it is more positive to the west than Yeltsin, although not everyone notices this. Which of them is right, time will tell. Probably, Putin perfectly understands that to fight with the West (I mean a verbal war) is absolutely hopeless. Only shit air. So he is trying to agree, reach consent. But these attempts end in the fact that Russia is amplified, squeezed within its borders, try to supplant influence from its spheres. ”

“The decision to take Viktor Medvedchuk to the post of head of the administration was dictated by one: I knew that he was a strong organizer and one of the most qualified lawyers in the country. I was convinced of this with the example of the "velvet revolution."

The book was printed in 2007, in Moscow, in the same publishing house "Time", and in Kyiv, in the publishing house "Dovir". Both circulations in Russian. Perhaps it was simply not yet time to provide chapters and this narrative with updated copyright comments in italics.

What lifts the Maidans

"Where were you ten years ago?" - Today his opponents ask rhetorical questions to Vladimir Zelensky, referring to the fact that he had nothing to do with the victory of Euromaidan. Although in the appeal of the President of Ukraine regarding the anniversary day of dignity and freedom, the pronouns “We” and “us” often sounded: “Ten years ago, we started a new page of struggle. Ten years ago, Ukrainians conducted their first counterattack. Against lawlessness, attempts to deprive us of a European future. Against our captivity. "

The orange Maidan of twenty years ago, who long offended Kuchma and did not give a chance to the pro -Russian Yanukovych, he called the “romantic dream”, and the second Maidan to set an ambitious target. “And today a new round of our history is performed. And today it just depends on our generation what direction it will receive. What will write about us in history textbooks. What descendants say about us. “They fought, but couldn’t” or “They fought and won”? ”

The Ukrainian Maidan, the very essence of the Kremlin, who is hated by the dictatorial regime of the Kremlin, tried to intervene twice, break the protest in a neighboring country, and it did not work! - According to Zelensky, Russia will try to simulate. Moreover, until the end of this year. He expressed such an assumption in an interview with the tabloid The Sun. The goal is the internal destabilization of the situation. “Last information: there is a plan for the Maidan-3 operation to change the president [of Ukraine]. Perhaps not through murder, but through a change of power. They will use any tools ... "The readers of the tabloid received even beyond the expectations. According to the laws of the genre, Zelensky “threw the bridge” to Putin from the topic of attempt on himself - they say, the Ukrainian side will also use a similar chance if it is possible: “This is a war - and Ukraine has all the rights to protect its land.”

Zelensky, not for the first time, has recently focused on the fact that in Kyiv they know: Moscow seeks to plunge Ukrainian society into chaos and thus shift the “unypable” president. Because no “frost” - in the sense of the liberation of the occupied territories - Putin will not wait for him. On November 16, during a meeting with a group of journalists, he already mentioned the plan of misinformation with the code name “Maidan-3”.

The Kremlin is still sure that any powerful protests in Ukraine are nothing more than cunning Western technologies. And technology can be mastered or faked. Neither the 2004th nor the 2013th taught them anything.

Kyiv