Where diplomacy is without ties, the people are without trousers — this is how People's Deputy of Ukraine Borys Bespalyi characterized the methods of Leonid Kuchma's decade-long foreign policy in relations with Russia. Now Ukraine is building good-neighborly relations with Russia, consistently defending its own interests. We are not younger brothers but equal neighbors, and although this is unusual for Russia, it will have to come to terms with it. This was stated by Borys Bespalyi, a member of the Presidium of the NSNS party, at a press conference in Lutsk. He familiarized journalists in detail with the Program of the Strategy for Ukraine's Development, with which the "Our Ukraine" bloc is going into the elections. And he once again emphasized: the final result of the Program is raising the level of well-being of citizens and introducing European standards in all spheres of society. Ukraine — historically and geopolitically — is a European state, and we must strive to be full members of the European community, said Borys Bespalyi. During his visit to Lutsk, the People's Deputy met with the activists of the Volyn regional organization of NSNS, and spoke with the staff of the Lutsk Institute of Human Development of the Open International University "Ukraine". Borys Bespalyi — a parliamentarian of the last two convocations of the Verkhovna Rada (the "Our Ukraine" faction), author of numerous legislative proposals (more than 3000 of them have been adopted by parliament). Namely: on guarantees of pension provision for scientific and pedagogical workers, on amendments to the law on telecommunications (abolition of charges for incoming calls to mobile phones, etc.