Chicken Kiev speech

The Chicken Kiev speech is the nickname for a speech given by the United States president George H. W. Bush in Kiev, Ukraine, on August 1, 1991, three weeks before the Declaration of Independence of Ukraine and four months before the December independence referendum in which 92.26% of Ukrainians voted to withdraw from the Soviet Union.

Bush looked to the Soviet President, Mikhail Gorbachev, to manage the process of reform and avoided giving support to nationalists in the republics.

He and Barbara Bush stayed with Gorbachev and his wife, Raisa, in a dacha outside Moscow, where the two leaders held informal discussions.

As Kravchuk put it prior to Bush's visit, "I am convinced that the Ukraine should be a sovereign, full-fledged and full-blooded state".

As his motorcade passed through Kiev, it was greeted by large numbers of people waving Ukrainian and American flags but also protesters bearing slogans such as "Mr. Bush: billions for the USSR is slavery for Ukraine" and "The White House deals with Communists but snubs Rukh", the principal pro-independence party in Ukraine.

"[9] It was later reported that Bush himself had added the phrase "suicidal nationalism" to the speech which his staff had drafted, seeking to warn the Ukrainians about the need to avoid what was happening in Yugoslavia.

The government of Georgia issued a statement declaring that "The heir of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and others arrives ... and carries on propaganda in favor of the Union Treaty.

"[13] Bush's speech also attracted criticism at home for being out of touch, though he was hardly alone in that; only the previous year, the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had declared that she could no more open an embassy in Kiev than she could in San Francisco.

[16][17] Safire later commented that the speech had made Bush seem "anti-liberty" and jeopardized US relations with the "emerging European power" of Ukraine.

[18] On February 8, 1992, The Economist said the speech was "the most flagrant example" of other nations failing to recognize the inevitability of Ukraine becoming an independent state.

Bush commented on the speech in 2004, explaining that he meant the Ukrainians should not do "something stupid", and that if their "leaders hadn't acted smartly, there would have been a crackdown" from Moscow.