Ukrainian President arrives in Russia today

President Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine is to arrive on a two-day working visit in Moscow today.

Talking to RIA-NOVOSTI, officials from Kuchma's press service noted that the Ukrainian leader and Yury Koptev, general director of the Russian Aerospace Agency, will discuss topical aspects of Ukrainian-Russian space cooperation.

The President of Ukraine is to visit Moscow's National Exhibition Center And the local book fair, unveiling his new book "Ukraine Is Not Russia" at that fair. These are seen are the main aspects of Kuchma's stay. Meanwhile part of Mr Kuchma's book deals with ways of ensuring Ukrainian territorial integrity.

Mr Kuchma analyses the development of the hitherto deserted Crimean coast, noting that the Crimea got everything it needed from Ukraine. The Crimea simply would not exist today without Dnieper water and Donbass coal, Kuchma notes.

At the same time, Kuchma is in no mood to discuss the peninsula's real-life national affiliation, that is, whether it should belong to the Tartars, the Ukrainians, the Russians or, maybe, the Greeks, who had founded colonies there long before Christ was born. Kuchma presumed that such debates are senseless because history doesn't know such a concept as real-life affiliation.

In his opinion, this issue can only be examined for the sake of analysing a myth, concerning Russia's special historic rights to the Crimea. This myth implies that the Crimea is a promised Russian territory, rather than just an ordinary Russian region. Consequently, one would have to analyse Russian military history for the sake of analysing this myth. Still this would imply yet another, i.e. naval, myth, which portrays the Black Sea fleet as the embodiment of Russian military glory. I'm so outspoken because Ukrainian nationals are directly linked with genuine and mythical glory alike, Kuchma writes. In his words, sailors for the Black Sea fleet were recruited from Ukraine for it was cheaper than to bring them from a far-away areas.