UKRAINE: Prime MInister Arseniy Yatseniuk says Ukraine will not be defeated and will not cede any of its territory

Record ID: 872704

  • Title: UKRAINE: Prime MInister Arseniy Yatseniuk says Ukraine will not be defeated and will not cede any of its territory
  • Date: 9th March 2014
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF UKRAINIAN ACTING PRESIDENT, OLEKSANDER TURCHINOV, AND PRIME MINISTER, ARSENY YATSENIUK, WALKING TOWARDS MONUMENT CLOSE OF YATSENIUK YATSENIUK AND TURCHINOV HOLDING FLOWER BOUQUETS TURCHINOV AND YATSENIUK WALKING TOWARDS MONUMENT VARIOUS OF SCHEVCHENKO MONUMENT TURCHINOV AND YATSENIUK SINGING
  • Embargoed: 24th March 2014 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Ukraine
  • City:
  • Country: Ukraine
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA9TIPVE5OE5GJNMXXGXQ3HA7WP
  • Aspect Ratio:
  • Story Text: Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said on Sunday (March 9) that Ukraine was unwilling to give up Crimea, citing the 1994 Budapest Memorandum that guaranteed Ukraine's territorial integrity.

    "We will defeat them and we will win. Against Ukraine, against our peoples, against our families, against our European future, our neighbouring country has launched a military aggression. Our answer to the Russian Federation is the only one: unity, confidence, dedication and the belief that we are going in the right direction," Yatseniuk said at a ceremony marking the 200th anniversary of the birth of national poet Taras Schevchenko.

    "This is our land, our parents and grandparents spilled their blood for this land. We will not give up a single centimetre of Ukrainian land. Let Russia and the Russian president know this," he added to a crowd of several thousand Ukrainians.
    Yatseniuk will visit Washington this week for talks as tensions build over Russian forces' seizure of the Crimea, a White House official confirmed on Sunday.
    Yatseniuk said Ukraine was trying to solve the crisis through diplomacy.

    "As a peaceful country we are doing our best and will continue to do our best to resolve this conflict by diplomatic and political means," he said.

    "We know that the signatories of the Budapest memorandum gave in 1994 guarantees to the territorial integrity of Ukraine, which gave up its nuclear weapons. They will do everything possible and impossible to fulfil this memorandum and to preserve Ukraine as an independent, unified and inviolable state," he added.
    The 1994 Budapest Memorandum, signed by Britain, United States, Russia and Ukraine provided guarantees of Ukraine's sovereignty and integrity in exchange for a Ukrainian commitment, since fulfilled, to give up its Soviet-era nuclear weapons.
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