KIEV, Aug. 12 – President Viktor Yushchenko’s party, Our Ukraine, on Wednesday called “aggressive” the recent letter from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, adding that Moscow has been “zombying” its people to try to incite anti-Ukrainian sentiment.

Yushchenko himself did not make any comments, but he has been working on a response that will probably be announced on Friday, a senior official at his office said Wednesday.

“The young leadership of Russia is turning into a hostage of old imperial complexes that constantly require creating an image of an external enemy and replacing an equal dialog with neighboring states with the language of intimidation and insult,” Vira Ulianchenko, the head of Our Ukraine, said in a statement posted on the party’s Website.

Ulianchenko, who is also the chief of staff at the Yushchenko office, reacted to an open letter from Medvedev in which he had accused Yushchenko of “anti-Russian” policy, also postponing the arrival of Russia’s new ambassador to Ukraine indefinitely.

The developments underscore the worst escalation of tensions between the two biggest European countries in terms of territory and come as Moscow has been increasingly exercising an assertive foreign policy.

The escalation comes exactly a year after thousands of Russian troops and tanks have invaded Georgia, a pro-Western ally of Ukraine in the Caucasus, with Moscow de-facto annexing Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Georgia’s two breakaway regions.

Crimea, Ukraine’s autonomous region dominated by ethnic Russians and the home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, may become the area that Moscow would try to destabilize next, analysts said.

The assertive, and often aggressive, foreign policy comes as Russia’s state-controlled televisions channels have been portraying Ukraine as an enemy state since the Orange Revolution in 2004.

The Orange Revolution, a popular uprising against sweeping election fraud, catapulted Yushchenko, pro-Western leader, to the presidency after he had defeated a pro-Russian candidate in a court-appointed third round of voting in December 2004.

To make the point, Ulianchenko cited recent two opinion polls carried jointly by independent Ukrainian and Russian survey firms, showing that most of Russians now consider Ukraine an “unfriendly” state, while most of Ukrainians considering Russia a “friendly” state.

Some 93% of Ukrainian respondents polled in March said they see Russia as a friendly state, up from 88% in March 2008, according to the poll by Levada Center and the Kiev International Institute of Sociology.

But 56% of Russian respondents polled in March said they consider Ukraine an “unfriendly” state, up from 30% a year earlier, according to the polls. Only Georgia has ranked even worse among the Russians.

“We cannot be unconcerned with the constant anti-Ukrainian zombying that is taking place in Russia,” Ulianchenko said.

“We, the citizens of both countries, must separate ourselves from the aggressive rhetoric to which belongs the latest address from the President of Russia,” Ulianchenko said. “We count on wisdom of our people that will show the place of those who forgets not only rules of civilized behavior, but also the lessons of history.”

Ulianchenko said that “renaissance of national identity,” historical memory and culture is a powerful movement in a “healthy body” of the Ukrainian people.

“The processes that are taking place in Ukraine are irreversible,” she said. “Open or hidden counteraction to these natural processes will hurt those who wants to hurt them.” (tl/ez)