A ‘Center for Russian Studies’ has been created in Ukraine. Founding members include an ex-Security Chief and Defense Minister and former Foreign Minister
KIEV, March 19 (Interfax-Ukraine) – An analytical organization, the Center for Russian Studies (CRF), has been created with the participation of state figures and experts.
The center will research events and processes in Russia, and its foreign policy.
“A group of experienced experts decided to unite for an in-depth study of processes taking place in Russia,” former Foreign Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Ohryzko said at the presentation on the creation of the CRF.
He said that since the 1990s no one in Ukraine and the West had studied these issues seriously.
“As it turned out, since the beginning of 90s, everybody has thought that Russia turned from the totalitarian USSR into a phoenix that will become democratic and beautiful. Now there’s a need to understand what’s really happening in Russia, how it plans on living in this world, how Ukraine and the world should build relations with this country,” Ohryzko said.
In turn, former Prime Minister, former Chief of the Security Service of Ukraine and former Defense Minister Yevhen Marchuk said that media coverage of Russia’s political direction in Ukraine was fully blocked during Viktor Yanukovych’s administration.
Others involved in the CRF include famous reporter Vitaliy Portnykov, energy expert Mykhailo Honchar, professor of Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv Volodymyr Serhiychuk, and Ukrainian diplomat Oleksandr Samarsky.