"Thawed the Permafrost": Former Justice Minister Serhiy Holovaty on how Ukraine survived the Kuchma era and how the Kremlin isolated the country
🇺🇦 **35 Years of Independence: How Ukraine Survived the Kuchma Era**
Former Justice Minister Serhiy Holovaty, one of the "fathers" of the 1996 Constitution, gave an exclusive interview to RBC-Ukraine as part of a special project for the anniversary of Independence.
🔹 **The Kuchma Era:** Holovaty calls it not a dictatorship, but an autocracy with checks that saved the country from a Soviet dead end.
🔹 **Economic Miracle:** Thanks to the institute of decrees, the government was able to "break the permafrost" of the Soviet economy and introduce the hryvnia.
🔹 **Constitutional Agreement:** The 1995 document, sewn with surgical instruments, became a "mini-constitution" and opened the way for Ukraine to join the Council of Europe.
🔹 **The Shadow of the Kremlin:** The "cassette scandal" and the Gongadze case, according to the expert, became a special operation to isolate Ukraine from the West.
📌 Read the full analysis in our special project "Ukraine: 35 Years of Independence".
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