Foreign Ministry: Ukraine has no plans to sign CIS Archive Agreement

As reported, an Agreement on Procedure for Reviewing the Level of Secrecy of Information classified in Soviet times was signed by some former Soviet republics at a CIS Summit in St. Petersburg in October. The Agreement binds Post-Soviet countries to agree policy on declassifying Soviet archives, and there were fears that Ukraine would also sign it. This could have meant some material being classified again, and Ukraine following the Russian approach which is much more secretive. 

Yevhen Teize from the Deutsche Welle Ukrainian Service has received a reply from Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry. O. Voloshin lists the Ukrainian laws which regulate the level of secrecy of information classified during the Soviet period and points out that all documents held by Ukrainian bodies are the property of Ukraine and their level of secrecy is determined by Ukraine.

“Therefore, Ukraine did not sign the Agreement in St Petersburg, is not considering joining it in the future and is not holding negotiations on this subject.”