"After the elections, Viktor Yanukovych has already undertaken several steps aimed not at the unification, but at the split of the Ukrainian society," says a statement of the head of Ukraine's Supreme Council's Committee
KYIV-- According to Anatolii Hrytsenko, the first steps after Viktor Yanukovych's victory in the presidential elections are a threat to national security. "After the elections, Viktor Yanukovych has already undertaken several steps aimed not at the unification, but at the split of the Ukrainian society," says a statement of the head of Ukraine's Supreme Council's Committee on National Security and Defense, Anatolii Hrytsenko, which was passed to UNIAN on February 23, 2010.
Among these steps, in his opinion, are the first appeal to the people of Ukraine in the Russian language; first television interviews of the newly elected head of the Ukrainian State for foreign TV channels.
"Viktor Yanukovych once again accentuates attention on the problematic issues in his first TV interviews that divide Ukrainian society. This is the status of state language for the Russian language, the prolongation of the Black Sea Fleet stay on the territory of Ukraine, the formation of gas transport consortium on the basis of the national gas transportation system," UNIAN cites Anatolii Hrytsenko as saying.
He also reminded that the newly elected President of Ukraine did not deny the information given by the prime minister, leader of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (BYuT) Yulia Tymoshenko, that he has already agreed with the leadership of Russia on Ukraine's accession to the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan.
According to Anatolii Hrytsenko, an unprecedented step of Viktor Yanukovych was an invitation sent to the Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), who on the morning of Inauguration Day will hold a solemn prayer service in the Kyiv Cave Monastery – on the occasion of the inauguration of Viktor Yanukovych for the post of president.
"On February 20, the spokesmen of the ROC published a statement that the Russian patriarch will ‘lead’ the prayer service in the monastery and added that the prayer service ‘will also be attended by Metropolitan Volodymyr of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate,’" noted Hrytsenko. "I suppose that from the viewpoint of the internal church hierarchy, the prayer service could be led by the patriarch of the ROC and not the metropolitan of the UOC. Perhaps such a decision would look less conflicting in Ukraine if the prayer was conducted for the occasion of a religious festival," added the official.
Hrytsenko stressed that it is "absolutely wrong when a prayer on the occasion of the inauguration of the President of Ukraine is led by the patriarch of the Russian state."
“Even more so as the prayer is conducted in the Ukrainian capital, in the Kyiv Cave Monastery. Even more so if the leaders of other churches and religious organizations are not present there," he added.