Word: ukrainians
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...There was in the minds of those old men in the Kremlin the conceit, personified and perfected by Stalin, that fear makes the world go round; fear can make the worker work, the % farmer farm, the writer write and, of course, the Latvian, the Armenian, the Uzbek and the Ukrainian all take orders from Moscow...
...they will pursue and form mechanisms to ensure that they really are coordinated. The alliance -- it is not really a state -- was not even a week old before its first potentially serious fissure appeared. While Yeltsin assured Soviet military leaders that the armed forces would remain under unified command, Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk proclaimed that all army units in his republic -- except those controlling nuclear weapons -- and the Soviet Black Sea fleet were now to constitute a separate Ukrainian army and navy, of which he would be commander in chief...
Living conditions for the troops are grim. Officers stationed in the Ukrainian town of Vitebsk have set up housekeeping in a stable. Soldiers in what was then called the Leningrad Military District built pigsties and planted vegetable gardens last spring so they would be assured of having food this winter. Barracks across the country have run out of new clothing, as well as medical supplies, parachutes and gasoline...
...move marked the culmination of a stunning political metamorphosis. After August's aborted coup, Kravchuk, then chairman of the Ukrainian parliament, straddled the fence, neither endorsing nor categorically condemning the coup leaders until failure was no longer in doubt. In quick succession, he resigned from the Communist Party and anointed himself the main champion of statehood. His 11th-hour conversion coincided with the political awakening of a majority of the republic's 53 million citizens...
Born to peasants in western Ukraine, he earned the equivalent of a master's degree in political economy at Kiev University, then embarked on a career as a party apparatchik, rising to head the propaganda department of the Ukrainian Communist Party. Authoritarian by nature, he has the acumen necessary to secure a powerful position alongside Yeltsin. To those who question his sincerity, Kravchuk responds, "A man cannot keep the same views all his life." All people undergo changes, he argues. His just happened to come all at once...