Anatoly Korolev and Dmitry Kosyrev, RIA Novosti commentators
In fact, it is the most unpopular of all national holidays, while the V-E Day, which Russians celebrate on May 9, is the best loved.Russia's Supreme Soviet (parliament) adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty soon after the USSR collapsed and the Commonwealth of Independent States, or the CIS, was established. President Boris Yeltsin insisted on the declaration to be adopted in the Soviet Union's lifetime as it reinforced his own position and that of political forces backing him, and provided a documentary basis of Russian independence from the USSR.
Hard times set in after that, so millions of Russians associate June 12 with mass impoverishment, deposits vanishing in ruined banks, collapsing free health service and education, and skyrocketing unemployment. An even greater psychological stress came as Russia lost overnight the lands whose conquest cost it several centuries of wars. Ukrainian independence struck the public the hardest.