Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union

by Vladislav M. Zubok

The next day, Kravchuk called Yeltsin to protest. Hadn’t they both agreed in November 1990 on the territorial integrity of the two republics? Yeltsin prevaricated. He denied he had authorized the declaration, arguing only that there could be a problem with having borders between Russia and Ukraine in the future, should the Union fall apart. Kravchuk agreed, but urged Yeltsin to solve this problem when it arose, “in a civilized manner.”61 Yeltsin’s waffling was a reaction to the political storm that the declaration triggered in the West and among Russian democrats. Western ambassadors were telephoning him to express their concerns. Journalists besieged Yeltsin’s office with enquiries: Had Yeltsin changed his colors? Would Russia go to war with Ukraine over Crimea? In Moscow, the Independent Gazette published an op-ed piece whose author compared Yeltsin’s territorial revisionism to Hitler’s claims on the Sudetenland in 1938.62