Soviet Union Coup in 1991 Triggered Ukrainian Independence - Ex-Ukrainian Leader

The events of August 1991, when the Soviet Union State Committee on the State of Emergency (GKChP) attempted a coup, gave the impetus to the proclamation of Ukrainian independence, first president of the country Leonid Kravchuk said.

KIEV (Sputnik) — Friday marks the 25th anniversary of the public announcement of the GKChP, a body comprising a group of coup plotters, being established in the Soviet Union to run the country. In the early hours of August 19, 1991, eight top Soviet officials who disagreed with the policies of USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev and the new draft Union Treaty formed the State Committee for the State of Emergency in the Soviet Union. On August 24, 1991, Ukraine declared its independence.

"I think the very independence of Ukraine was historically inevitable. All nations differently walked to freedom, to their rights — through the blood, through suffering, sometimes even through terrible torments. But the idea of ​​independence and freedom has always been dominant in Ukraine. That is why it [the independence] would happen sooner or later. But, if there was no coup, I think the independence could had been postponed not for a month, but even for a longer time, because everyone who saw the Emergency Committee… understood that the Soviet Union has no power to unite and strengthen the collapsing state," Kravchuk told RIA Novosti.

According to him, the events involving the GKChP showed that Ukraine must rely on their own strength to overcome the consequences of the USSR disintegration.

"We had to do something ourselves in order not to be under the rubble of the collapsing Soviet Union, and there was a lot to collapse. So yes, the GKChP made the period [to the independence] shorter. But I cannot say that the whole Ukraine was immediately ready of the independence," Kravchuk added.

He stressed that at the moment independence declaration, different parts of Ukrainian society differently assessed this event, but that the coup increased the number of independence supporters.

"90 percent voted for independence. But this was after the coup. And without the Emergency Committee, I think the figure would be considerably lower — still more than half of voters — but not as much as 90 percent," Kravchuk noted.

The GKChP Resolution 1 suspended the activity of political parties and public organizations and also banned rallies and street marches. Service personnel and military equipment were deployed along key routes leading into central Moscow, and surrounded a district next to the Kremlin. The tank deployment has triggered all-out protests in Moscow, Leningrad and some other Soviet cities. RSFSR President Boris Yeltsin led the resistance movement and deemed establishment of the GKChP an attempted coup d’etat.

In the aftermath of the coup, all GKChP members, except Boris Pugo, who committed suicide, were arrested.