The second part of an exclusive interview of the second President of Ukraine (1994-2005) Leonid Kuchma with the Interfax-Ukraine agency

The first part of the interview

 

What do you see as the prospects for the post-war recovery of Ukraine's economy? To what extent, in your opinion, does Ukraine need to restore its industrial potential, which was badly damaged during the war? To what extent, in your opinion, is Ukraine able to restore its position in aircraft and rocket engineering?

They say that the deeper the crisis, the greater the opportunities. It is said as if about us now. Our industry is largely destroyed. We valued it very much, but let's be honest: to a large extent it was outdated and uncompetitive. At the same time, the civilized world is ready after the war to help restore our potential. The question is which one exactly?

Simply rebuilding what was destroyed would mean recreating and further deepening backwardness and non-competitiveness. Our chance is to use global investment and national strategy to create a new generation economy. And this is quite possible.

I see several promising areas for Ukraine's strategic move. These are information and intellectual technologies (IT+AI), aircraft industry (missiles, UAVs, etc.), green energy and the agricultural sector. We already have personnel, schools, experience, and traditions here. It is only necessary to create a modern production infrastructure, attract investments and enter foreign markets. Regarding the UAV industry, it is a discovery for me how quickly it is developing in our country and how broad are the prospects for the use of unmanned systems not only in war, but also in peaceful spheres of life. In this field, our specialists have already proven that they are capable of creating a world school and forming a world tradition.

I have been talking about the need to restore our rocketry for fifteen years. Especially after the start of Russia's “hybrid war.” I have constantly urged the state to make strategic investments in the development of Pivdenne design bureau and Pivdenmash plant, because I knew that they were ready to offer what Ukraine needed. I am confident that if by 2022 we had created our own medium-range ballistic missile capable of reaching Moscow, it would have become a means of non-nuclear deterrence and prevented Putin from aggression.

Ukrainian rocketry is my destiny, my pride, my pain. And my hope. I hope it has a great future. And this includes not only my native Pivdenmash and Pivdenne Design Bureau, but also a number of manufacturers whose developments we have already learned about (such as the Neptune cruise missile) or whose developments are still unknown in the media because they should come as a terrible surprise for the enemy.

How Ukrainian rocket production will be organized, whether the space component will return to its nomenclature - all this depends on many factors caused by the war. As long as the war lasts, this production will be a priority target of Russian attacks. The Dnipro Space and Rocket Center became their target several times during the war. But the contribution of rocket-building enterprises to our victory can be so significant that any efforts to guarantee their security will be strategically justified.

In the field of energy, the war threw us a revolutionary challenge. And we accepted it. Already today, our energy engineers and entrepreneurs are creating miracles of indomitability, modernization and localization here. I see that after the war we will have a completely different energy system, especially its structure, than 15-20 years ago.

In turn, the agricultural industry demonstrated stability and perspective during the war. Almost all countries experienced food crises and famine during the wars. Our main problem has become the export of agricultural products. During the three years of the war, Ukraine harvested more grain than during the entire 1980s under the Union. This is the result of our successful agrarian reform and the indomitable spirit of our working peasantry. I believe that after the war these successes will multiply, here is our largest export component.

Are economic ties between Ukraine and Russia possible in the coming years after the end of the war? If so, which ones? What do you think the future holds for Russia?

After the war, economic contacts with Russia for Ukraine are not only possible, but absolutely necessary! Otherwise, how will we receive reparations?

I cannot imagine other connections, at least in the first post-war years. What will happen next? I don't know. In principle, political relations are largely determined by history and ideology. Economic ones, by geography and geology. Under all conditions, Russia will remain close to us geographically. And in the bowels of Russia, as I often say, the entire Table of Mendeleev will remain. So, it would seem, geography and geology urge us not to renounce the prospects of economic interaction with Russia. But we will never forget history, especially the most recent one. And I do not believe that Russia's ideology will change unless Russia itself fundamentally changes.

After the Second World War, the Germans went through denazification – real denazification, not the one that Putin likes to talk about, not understanding the meaning of this word. And only after that, the Germans, realizing the horror of their twelve-year clouding of the mind, repented. They repented sincerely and forever, and now Germany is once again a great European country with high culture and humanistic morals. Similarly, Russia must go through the process of de-imperialization. And here, too, there are many examples.

The world can still force a nuclear power to abandon aggression against its neighbors, but it cannot force it to change its own aggressive imperial psychology unless it wants to. And without this, Russia will remain a huge territory with a population that readily allowed itself to be intoxicated by the drug of imperial aggression, had time to taste blood and, it seems, liked its taste. Can you imagine trade and economic cooperation with an aggressive country and people who have already tried to destroy you once and "might do it again" if given the opportunity? I can't.

About Belarus and Lukashenko. How should Ukraine build relations with the former and the latter, both during and after the war? To what extent, in your opinion, does Lukashenko remain an independent figure?

I think Ukraine’s leaders chose correctly the current model of relations with Belarus, regardless of where this war started and how Russia constantly uses Belarusian territory. Everyone understands everything. Everyone sees everything. Nobody forgot anything. But both sides pretend to faithfully adhere to armed neutrality. And, at this point, this is correct.

It seems to me that Ukrainians have historically been ready for Russia to become our open enemy. Muscovy did too much in the distant and recent past to expect this. But Belarus has never previously given reasons for us to regard the country as a potential enemy. Unlike the Russians, with whom we lived in the same state for just over three centuries, we were together with the Belarusians in both the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. We were separated only after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

I grew up on the historical border of three eastern Slavic peoples, and the mixed language of my childhood had a significant Belarusian component, which I did not understand at the time. But what I understood from the first days of my political life was the need to maintain our closeness with the Belarusian people. That is why, after becoming president, I constantly maintained a high level of political and economic relations with Belarus, and was in direct contact with Lukashenko. Unlike my relationship with Kwasniewski, with whom I met almost as often, there was no friendship between me and Lukashenko. I'm not even sure if he has any friends. But I wanted our peoples and states to be friends, and that was possible at the time.

Putin needs Lukashenko. Belarus is strategically invaluable to Putin – both for a war against us and for a potentially inevitable confrontation with the West. Today, Lukashenko effectively controls his country, for which Putin himself would not have enough resources.  I would say that Lukashenko today is not an independent player, but a strong one. The paradox is that Lukashenko is doubly dependent – he relies on Russia and China, a servant of two masters. But this gives him room to maneuver, from time to time using the conflict of interests and contradictions between Beijing and Moscow. Is there a lot of potential in such a game? Let's see.

As for relations with Belarus after the war. Here - as with many other issues - everything depends on how and when this war will end.

Relations with Western neighbors: Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania. How would you improve them, seeing that problems continue to arise?

One solution is mutual respect. Do not allow yourself to treat your neighbors as you would not allow them to treat yourself.

We have different relations with all the countries you mentioned, with different histories. And with some of them, the problems go back centuries, while with others they have arisen quite recently - before our eyes and, I would say, “out of the blue.” And they could have been avoided if we had calculated every step we took. During my presidential decade, Ukraine did just that. As a result, we built friendly relations with all of our central European neighbors: there were no conflicts with Hungary (although the ethnic picture in Zakarpattia was the same as it is now), territorial problems with Romania were resolved (and Romania recognized our sovereignty over Zmiinyi Island, which is now one of the symbols of Ukrainian resistance). Meet each other halfway rather than attacking head-on - that's the whole recipe. Something tells me that if ten years ago we had chosen a more flexible model for solving our “Hungarian issue,” it would have been much harder for Orban to justify his anti-Ukrainian line to the EU and NATO leadership all this time.

The model, standard of interstate relations for me was our relations with Poland during my presidency, almost simultaneously with Alexander Kwasniewski’s one. When he and I came to power in the mid-1990s, our countries didn’t treat each other very well, to say the least. When at the end of the Soviet era taboos were lifted and it became possible to speak out loud about the difficult problems of the past (the Volyn tragedy, the Vistula operation, etc.), some started talking about them too loudly. The unhealed history of Ukrainian-Polish relations poisoned the present and did not promise a good future. But Kwasniewski and I, having become friends very quickly, began to do everything to make Ukraine and Poland real friends, too. "We forgive and ask for forgiveness" – this was our principle, bequeathed by Pope Ivan Paul II, who helped us in the reconciliation of our peoples as much as he could. And I think that the unprecedented level of support for Ukraine that Poland has shown since the first hours of the Russian invasion is to some extent due to what we did then with Kwasniewski.

I observe with a very bad feeling the regular escalation of the rhetoric of Ukrainian and Polish politicians, who have begun to wake up history again. It is inadmissible to turn the graves of past conflicts into a means of manipulation. But it is all the more unacceptable at a time when the graves of the victims of the current war of Ukrainians with an inhuman enemy, who is trying to destroy our nation today and does not hide his intention to do the same to the Poles tomorrow.

What are your main areas of activity now? What projects does your Foundation currently support?

For many years, we have helped educational and cultural institutions: schools, universities, libraries, museums - both of national and world importance, as well as less well-known ones located in rural areas. And we continued to do it after February 24, 2022. In fact, only now is the realization of how important this work is - investing efforts in children and youth. It is impressive to the core how sincerely and defiantly schoolchildren and students continue their studies - in shelters, without light, under shelling. Many thanks to parents and teachers for their work.

If we talk about our youngest friends, then they are Ukrainian mathematicians, they constantly win new victories. We have been friends since 2007, and during this time they have by no means lowered the bar of their achievements, every year they win championships at European and world competitions. For example, this year, Ukrainian schoolgirls once again won the European Mathematics Olympiad for girls. We especially take care of art educational institutions - music schools and colleges, centers of children's and youth creativity. Back in 2013, the Foundation purchased 75 Steinway/Essex pianos, and all these years we donated these instruments to children's groups all over the country. This year we handed over six of them, and next year will give another five.

For 20 years, we have been running a scholarship program to support universities in Dnipro, Chernihiv Oblast, Kharkiv, Kyiv and other regions. We help both technical and humanitarian universities - every year their gifted students receive financial scholarships from the Foundation. From 2023, Mariupol State University, which evacuated to Kyiv, joined these ranks. For many years, our Foundation has cooperated with the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, the main engineering educational institution of Ukraine. To be honest, if you had asked me before 2022 about the achievements of our higher education institutions, I would have said a lot. My answer today is brief: They are working for Ukraine’s defense and security forces.