Yeltsin’s daughter: “If it were not for Chubais, we would live under Lukashenka’s leadership”

Tatyana Dyachenko has started her own blog to directly answer questions of Russian citizens about the period of Boris Yeltsin’s rule.

In one of her first posts she told about an accident when sovereignty of Russia was rescue by attention of Anatoly Chubais.

In April 1986 Russia and Belarus signed an agreement o creation of the community of the two states. Its aim was to create a single federal state. The executive committee of the new state formation was to prepare the Statute of the union state: “As it often happens in such cases, the document was to be approved by ministries and agencies, consent of the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry and the CIS Affairs ministry was received… and it was announced by mass media that on April 2 the two presidents are to sign a new union treaty”.

“On March 28 Anatoly Chubais, First Deputy Prime Minister of the country, called to the Kremlin to the Chief of the Russian presidential administration Valentin Yumashev and told: Valya, do you know that in a week a new state appears. What do you mean, Yumashev asked.

In the conversation they found out that in the document which Chubais had on his table for, contained clauses that in fact destroyed sovereignty of Russia, and transfer power authority to the bodies of the union: the Supreme Council and the Parliamentary assembly. For instance, one of the articles stated: “Decisions of the Supreme Council are obligatory for the bodies of the Union and for the executive authorities of the participating counties”, Tatyana Dyachenko wrote in her blog.

The proposed Statute was prepared by the Chairman of the State Duma for CIS Affairs, a Communist Tikhonov, and Deputy Foreign Minister of Belarus Antonovich. It turned out that nobody considered the document carefully and entered in details; it was signed and sent to higher levels of power. Even in the Kremlin the president’s aide for international issues sent a note to Yeltsin saying that the Statute should be signed, as “it meets strategic interests of Russia completely”.

“In the morning Yumashev reported the situation to the president. My dad was infuriated. There was a split inside the government and the presidential administration. Vice Prime Minister Serov and Presidential aide Ryurikov, the two central figures responsible for the work with the CIS, insist on signing this document. Their reasons: the Statute is a step for creation of the new Union…

There was the question what we would do in case Alyaksandr Lukashenka, the head of the Union and the head of the Supreme Council, would engage in Russian economy, as he does that in his home country, or declare war to the West. The answer was, well, we won’t allow that. But it would be impossible to prevent as the Statute offered such possibilities,” the president’s daughter explains.

As a result, despite of displeasure of Belarusians, the statute was changed, and the parts contradicting the Constitution of Russia were cancelled.

“In order not to do it in a rush, the draft Statute was published to organize an all-people's discussion. The Belarusian side, understanding there is no chance to Russia, demanded to remove the article for which all this process had been plotted: about possibility to create a federative state in the future. So if it were not for Chubais, we would live under the command of the president of the new state, Alyaksandr Lukashenka,” Dyachenko concluded.