Our Ukraine launches large-scale NATO information project
The recent NATO summit in Bucharest must have been a cold shower for our national democrats, forcing them to switch from rhetoric about the need to conduct explanatory work about NATO to concrete action. On May 30, the Our Ukraine- People’s Union Party (NU-NS) launched a project called “Yes to NATO!” in support of Ukraine’s membership.
This is the first project of the information campaign, which coincided with a clash that took place in the Crimean city of Symferopil. On Thursday, May 29, opponents of NATO hurled tomatoes, eggs, and juice packages at pro-NATO activists. Most of the missiles ended up hitting law enforcement officers. The NU-NS press service explained to The Day that this was an unauthorized, arbitrary act on the part of several raion organizations.
Provocations also took place on the following day, when about 20 supporters of the indefatigable pro-Russian politician Natalia Vitrenko gathered at the Ukraine Palace during the ceremony launching the NATO information campaign. Their hysterical shouts attracted no one’s attention except for a few Russian media people.
The ceremony was held in classic NU-NS style, with various politicians stepping up to the microphone, followed by concert numbers and scenes from Volodymyr Kastelli’s film NATO: Friend or Foe . All in all, the ceremony was a success. Clearly, little money, time, and energy was spared and the entertainment was good.
The speech by Olha Herasymiuk, a journalist and television host on the 1 + 1 Channel, moved her listeners to tears. She talked about the ecological disaster in Zakarpattia in the late 1990s, when thousands of people were killed or left homeless as a result of a landslide.
“A helicopter brought us to a remote village that was cut off from the rest of the world. Everyone was scared because they expected that another landslide would destroy more homes. We spent the night there and heard the mountains rumble. In the morning everybody watched the sky, waiting for help. A NATO helicopter arrived, unloading young men from Bulgaria, Romania, and Holland. They airlifted women, children, and men with their scant belongings, their flocks of sheep.
“The NATO people were not armed to the teeth. They were members of a rescue team that saved a number of lives. You remember the boy in Kosovo holding a poster that was read by the whole world? It said, ‘Thank you, NATO!’ This was a reference to NATO soldiers led children to school by the hand, protecting them from stray bullets. Some of those soldiers were our sons and we are proud of them.”
What more can one possibly add to this?
The NS-NU is planning to hold similar projects in every city in Ukraine for the rest of the year. Even if Ukraine is turned down again in December, the campaign will be stepped up, and the party will continue to pursue its objective of informing the country about NATO, said the leader of Our Ukraine Viacheslav Kyrylenko.
Meanwhile, Commander in Chief of the Russian Navy Vladimir Vysotsky said that Russia may increase the number of warships berthed at Sevastopil to 100. “The basic agreement allows us to have a Black Sea Fleet consisting of up to 100 vessels. We have 35 ships now and 11,000 officers and men, whereas we can have 25,000. Then we can raise the question of what’s preventing us from increasing our strength in accordance with the basic agreement,” he told journalists in Bishkek.
