The day after the nationwide referendum December 1, 1991, in which the people approved the Declaration of Independence of Ukraine, our state have recognized Poland and Canada. Since December established diplomatic relations with Hungary, December 5, Russia recognized the independence of Ukraine and 25 December - United States. At present Ukraine has diplomatic relations with 154 nations of the world.
In the same December 1991, Ukraine joined the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) - the intergovernmental organization, uniting all former Soviet republics except Estonia. Latvia and Lithuania. The purpose of the CIS was coordination of new sovereign states in transition.
Another union of former Soviet republics became GUAM {Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova). Ukraine is the recognized leader of this organization, which runs a joint economic projects four states.
Since 1945 Ukraine is among the founding of the United Nations (UN),
gaining of independence demanded new forms of international cooperation. Now strategic importance of Ukrainian foreign policy, is joining the European Union and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). The first of these two powerful organizations aimed at creating a political, monetary and economic union of European states to remove all obstacles to free movement of services, capital and people as well as for a common foreign and security policy. The second - a military-political alliance of collective defense, which includes most European countries and Turkey, the USA and Canada.
order to join these organizations in Ukraine to bring its legislation, economic relations and living standards to European standards. This, at a conservative estimate, takes 5 - 10 years.
experience in cooperation in military field with the NATO Ukraine gained by participating in peacekeeping operations in hot spots around the globe. In recent years it was the presence of Ukrainian troops in international forces in Lebanon, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Iraq.
Ukraine an important step towards closer relations with democratic countries, and especially the U.S., was the renunciation of nuclear weapons inherited from the Soviet past.
most developed economic relations of our country has with Russia, Turkmenistan, Germany, Italy, Poland, China, Turkey, USA. Trade with each of these countries is calculated in billions of dollars.
Ukrainian diaspora originates from the second half of XIX century. since the Ukrainian peasants were en masse leave home, mainly because of shortage of arable land. Before World War there were Ukrainian colonies in Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, in Siberia, northern Kazakhstan, the Far East. In the interwar period, migration has become a political nature and spryamuvalasya mainly to Europe. After World War II Ukrainian colonization reached Australia and New Zealand, have crowded the Ukrainian communities in Germany, Britain, France, the increased inflow of Ukrainian in the U.S. and Canada. In outlining the final borders of the USSR who are not at all areas coincided with a continuous Ukrainian ethnolinguistic territory, many found themselves outside the Ukrainian historical homeland: Poland, Slovakia, Romania and in Russia, Belarus and Moldova. In the remaining objectives of these areas with a predominance of the Ukrainian population, doomed to gradual assimilation.
During the Soviet period, Ukrainian Ukrainian history roz'yizhdzhalysya all the boundless space of the USSR. As a result, in 1989 in a Russian population of 4.4 million Ukrainian, for 2002, their number is 2.9 million, due to assimilation. Reduced the number of Ukrainian and other Soviet republics. In Kazakhstan, for example, for the period 1989 - 2002 Ukrainian р. number decreased from 896 thousand to 547 thousand in Uzbekistan - to 153 thousand to 104 thousand in Latvia - from 92 thousand to 62 thousand in Georgia - with 52 thousand to 7 thousand others.
In many cases, the formation of independent states of the former USSR, Ukrainian began returning to their historical homeland.
In Europe and America, the number of Ukrainian was more, they often live compact communities, talking among themselves in their native language, preserve cultural traditions. Restoration of the Ukrainian state pozhvavylo ties between Ukrainian worldwide. In Kiev periodically Ukrainian World Congress.
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