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President Vladimir Putin: Esteemed Leonid Danilovich [Kuchma],

Dear colleagues and friends,

It gives me sincere pleasure to welcome all of you here to this celebration today. Today’s event really is a celebration as it marks the end of our two years of work. Leonid Danilovich mentioned the closure of the Year of Russia in Ukraine, but in Russia we remember the Year of Ukraine in Russia.

I would like to offer my sincere thanks to all our Ukrainian friends who took part in preparing and holding the events that were part of the Year of Russia in Ukraine. I would particularly like to mention the attentive support given by President of Ukraine Leonid Danilovich Kuchma.

The Year of Russia in Ukraine was a logical continuation to the Year of Ukraine in our country. Today’s ceremony marks another step towards strengthening the ties between our two countries. What we have already achieved provides us with a solid foundation for continuing to move forward.

We in Russia feel sincere pride, and I would like to emphasise this, we feel pride in Ukraine’s successes. We feel pride in your country’s strengthening economic potential and international position. Russia needs a strong Ukraine, and I am sure that Ukraine needs a strong Russia. In this way our countries are sure to be loyal allies and reliable strategic partners for each other.

If we act in this spirit I don’t doubt for a second that together we can overcome any of the difficulties we have inherited from the past and resolve any problems that seem at first glance very complicated and impossible to solve, including the problems mentioned by the Ukrainian President in his speech. I am sure you will agree that productive cooperation would be impossible if our citizens do not make it their will and desire. We need for our peoples to feel a pull towards each other and to be genuinely interested in removing the obstacles for contact and business partnerships between them. This is the spirit that has helped us attain our main objective, that of involving broad groups of our citizens in the process of developing our bilateral ties, and this has enabled us to make our economic, humanitarian and public-political projects genuinely oriented towards our people.

Over the two years of our work we have covered almost the whole spectrum of cooperation and have considerably reinforced our strategic partnership. We have an ongoing dialogue at the highest political level and are actively developing ties between our parliaments. New joint projects in the areas of the economy, science, education and culture are emerging all the time.

Four countries have agreed to create the Single Economic Space, and this opens up many good prospects for developing cooperation. This is definitely one of last year’s most significant events both for relations between our countries and for the process of general European economic integration. It gives me real pleasure to note, as I already had the occasion to do so at the meeting with the President and afterwards while speaking to the press, that work here is progressing on an absolutely equal footing, takes into account the interests of all the parties involved and is completely non-politicised. This is the main thing and is the guarantee of our success in this area.

We have also had considerable success in our trade and economic cooperation. Leonid Danilovich has already spoken of the results achieved. But we do not intend to stop here. Major projects are already planned and new agreements have been reached that will open up new business horizons for us. We also plan to organise investments forums such as those taking place in Odessa, Kharkov and Belgorod in other locations as well.

I am convinced that all these initiatives that emerge should be taken up and continued, and that the positive experience we build up should be applied at the level of the Russian and Ukrainian regions. In this way we will not only strengthen but also multiply the achievements of our recent bilateral cooperation.

The agreements signed in the humanitarian area, including agreements to jointly set up and run branches of our higher education establishments in each of our countries and on youth exchanges will also contribute to boosting our relations, as will the agreements we have signed in the area of health.

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I must say that Ukraine’s culture, history and language are familiar and dear to the heart of every Russian.

I would like to come back to what the Ukrainian President said regarding Chekhov’s words. Chekhov gave expression to what practically everyone in Russia thinks still today, namely that we have a sincere love for Ukraine’s literature, music and songs. We have a deep respect for the hardworking and wise Ukrainian people and we know that these feelings are mutual.

These days coincide with the celebration of the 350th anniversary of the Pereyaslavl Rada. This was an event that had a huge influence on the relations between our two states and on our countries’ development. I think that this event had a big impact on Russia’s development.

We always talk about how significant this event was for Ukraine. I think it was also very significant for Russia. I think it was significant in terms of joint construction, state-building and exchange of cultural values between our two fraternal peoples. And I am sure and do not doubt for a second that this had an immense, positive impact on Ukraine’s development too.

Had a different choice been made back then it is unlikely that Ukraine would be the powerful European state that it is today.

Today, in a different era, we must remember the lessons of our shared history. The main lesson is that a strategic partnership between Russia and Ukraine always made us both stronger and helped us rise to challenges and reach achievements for all our people.

There is no doubt that we still have a lot to do together. This task is not easy, but it is necessary and noble and meets the sincere hopes of the citizens of both our countries.

Allow me to wish our Ukrainian brothers peace and prosperity, and to wish new achievements for Russian-Ukrainian relations.

Thank you very much.