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Diplomatic Blackmail (the "Chicken Kiev" Speech, August 1991)

The union center's use of international levers to keep Ukraine within the USSR. The culmination was US president Bush's visit to Kyiv, where from the rostrum of the Verkhovna Rada he warned against independence: "Americans will not support those who seek independence in order to replace a far-off tyranny with a local despotism. They will not aid those who promote a suicidal nationalism based upon ethnic hatred"[1].

ID: C0094
Start:  August 1991
End:  August 1991
Contributors: decolonial.ist project
Version: 1.1
Created: 27 April 2026
Last Modified: 1 August 2026
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Actors

ID Name Procedures
G0010 USSR 1

Instruments Applied

ID Name Procedures
S0009 Diplomacy 1

Procedures Carried Out


August 1991
T0008 Deprivation of Agency
C0094 Diplomatic Blackmail (the "Chicken Kiev" Speech, August 1991)
G0010 USSR
S0009 Diplomacy

The union center deployed an international platform against Ukrainian sovereignty: Bush publicly called the striving for independence a "suicidal nationalism based upon ethnic hatred"[1] – the speech went down in history as the "Chicken Kiev speech."

References

  1. George H. W. Bush (The American Presidency Project, UCSB). (1991). Remarks to the Supreme Soviet of the Republic of the Ukraine in Kiev.