Soviet officials treated Ukrainians same way Lavrov, Medvedev do today – Ukrainian diplomat

The condescending and humiliating attitude of Soviet officials toward Ukrainians always existed and was no different from the rhetoric and behavior of modern Russian politicians such as Sergei Lavrov and Dmitry Medvedev.

Andrii Veselovskyi, an ambassador and advisor to the director of the National Institute for Strategic Studies, said this in an interview with Ukrinform.

The diplomat said that in 1989, in his opinion, about 90% of the staff at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic wanted an independent Ukraine.

"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR was small – about 50 employees, including three cleaners and two drivers. Everyone knew each other and, so to speak, 'worked in the same pot.' Hennadii Udovenko, who at the time was Ukraine's representative to the United Nations and later became foreign minister, never seemed like someone who wanted to preserve Soviet rule," Veselovskyi said.

He added that he knew people in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union who oversaw the ministry. According to him, they were formally "flesh of the party," with some fearing it more and others less, but all sought independence because "we lived under the direct control of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union."

"Remember how Ukrainians today perceive Lavrov or Medvedev. Russians were the same back then: humiliating, rude, arrogant, and patronizing toward us because 'they're just Khokhols.' None of us had any doubt that it was better to have nothing in common with that structure and those people, and that we had to somehow distance ourselves from them," the diplomat said.

As Ukrinform previously reported, ahead of the invasion of Ukraine in mid-July 2021, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin published an article on the Kremlin website titled "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians," in both Russian and Ukrainian. In it, he once again attempted to justify his claim that Russians and Ukrainians are supposedly "one people," implying that Ukrainians as a distinct nation do not exist.

Photo from Andrii Veselovskyi's personal archive