Margaret Thatcher Speech at Ukrainian Government lunch in Kiev - June 9, 1990

The message which we bring you with this Britain festival in Kiev is one of friendship, of coming together to celebrate the end of the division of Europe. It is also a message of pride and confidence in our achievements.

Whatever form the new Europe takes, its foundation will remain the individual nations and peoples, each proud of their identity and their history and wanting to preserve them, while also being ready to work together to make themselves more prosperous and more secure. That is the spirit in which we come to Kiev: certainly not the first invasion in the history of the Ukraine, but definitely the most friendly!

But we don't want it to be just a one-off occasion, which after this month is over is little more than a pleasant memory. We want it to be the beginning of much closer and more regular contacts of every sort--trade, joint ventures, artistic and cultural events and so on.

If I may put it this way: Britain in one form or another is here to stay. That should be the pattern of the future.

We are particularly pleased that this event is taking place in the Ukraine and in Kiev. Kievian Rus was the first of the Russian states and Kiev itself is known as the mother of Russian cities. You were traditionally one of the great political and cultural centres of Eastern Europe and I am sure that will be so again as the barriers between East and West fall away.