My name is Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, and I am the chairman of the political council of the Our Ukraine political party, and also here representing the NGO renewal of the country.
It's my pleasure today to address you, distinguished members of the Canadian Parliament. Let me start with the agenda of the opposition in Ukraine. We understand now that we have to be united. We really have to propose the agenda for Ukraine for the 21st century.
Let me start with expressing appreciation to your government, to you, for the Canadian physicians who have visited Yulia Tymoshenko in prison to examine her medically. They did a great job. We appreciate that and we'd like to encourage you to continue such missions. They are very important, especially for political prisoners currently in jail and imprisoned by the current authorities, by the regime of Mr. Yanukovych.
Let me also present my strong belief that the only effective means to oppose the existing authoritarian regime in my country are united opposition, a strong civil society, and fair elections.
As Mr. Tarasyuk mentioned, the upcoming elections are crucial and are of great importance for my country. We, as a united opposition, think the only force that can defend and free political prisoners—let me again mention Tymoshenko, Lutsenko, and other members of the opposition—must be united and studying from the same line in order to oppose the current events and the course of the current government.
The course it has chosen is clearly pro-Russian, Soviet-style, with no clear understanding of what Ukrainian independence means for all Ukrainians, what our history is, what our culture is, and what our Euro-integration and Euro-Atlantic aspirations are on the whole.
Again, let me bring your attention to the main point where we'd like to ask you, as distinguished members of Parliament, to support our democracy as much as you can by sending a broad-scale observation mission to Ukraine for the upcoming election, as you did during the Orange Revolution.
We thank our Ukrainian communities in Canada and the United States for conducting such very important missions. Let me again ask you to support, by all means—by governmental means, by parliamentary means—such an observation mission to Ukraine.
Let me conclude with the following. Geopolitically we understand what happened to Ukraine and what we expect from the so-called band of swindlers and thieves, currently back in power in Moscow, in Russia. We are talking about Mr. Putin's aspirations and plans to bring us back to the CIS, a USSR-style union, where we don't see any place for us as a democratic country as Ukrainians do not want to live again under the curtain of a Soviet-style regime.
Let me ask you to understand that the first target for the new, third term of Mr. Putin's presidency, of course, will be the independent Ukraine. It will be, by any means, trying to bring us back, to limit our liberties, and to limit Ukraine's independence. It will, by any means, provide pressure on foreign policy and domestic policy, and as much as it can, separate Ukraine from the western world—the democratic world—to show that the only alternative for such countries, for my country, is being back united again with Russia.
Thank you for your attention. Thank you very much.