UKRAINIAN REACTION TO RUSSIAN RESURGENCE.

UKRAINIAN REACTION TO RUSSIAN RESURGENCE.

Two important documents appeared in October that draw attention to Ukrainian alarm at the direction of Russian policies toward the "near abroad." One was a position paper drawn up by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for circulation to Ukraine’s top officials in response to Boris Yeltsin’s September 14 decree, "On the Establishment of the Strategic Course of the Russian Federation with Member States of the CIS." The paper, promptly leaked to the press, concludes that Russia intends to reassert supremacy in the region by various means, including appeal to ethnic Russians. It does not intend to build its relations with CIS countries in accordance with international law. (9)

Last week, Ukraine’s Writers’ Union published a strongly worded manifesto condemning Yeltsin’s decree and the activities of aggressive Russian nationalists in Ukraine. (10) The manifesto was its first dramatic statement on this topic since the Writers’ Union led Ukraine’s drive for independence in the Gorbachev era.

Ukranian Demonstration Symptomatic