Ukraine’s Day

Viktor Yushchenko has just been inaugurated as Ukraine’s President.  Neeka’s Backlog is liveblogging the event:

Can’t believe it’s really happening… Yushchenko has just arrived in the Rada, he looks terrific, wonderfully, almost as he did before the poisoning, in Kyiv there are more people and buses than during the revolution

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Yushchenko’s already left but the people are still coming to Maidan. There must be around half a million there now. Old women were crying during his speech.

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The Maidan crowd they are showing is so beautiful, so happy - and soooooooooo huge!

There were talks of some surprise during today’s concert at Maidan, to be held after Yushchenko’s speech - well, we’ve just learned that there are rumors U2 is in Kyiv. Just rumors… But if it does happen, maybe it would be partly thanks to me - remember I wrote sometime during the revolution that oh, wouldn’t it be nice for Bono to come over here?!..

And here, courtesy of the BBC, is some of what he had to say about Ukraine’s future:

"Our way to the future is the way of a united Europe."

"We are not on the outskirts of Europe, we are at the centre of Europe… Forever our blue and yellow flag will fly."

Welcome home.

Tagged as: Former Soviet Union