Viktor Yushchenko, right, former president of Ukraine, is the recipient of the Dole Leadership Prize and was the featured fall speaker Monday at the Dole Institute of Politics. With him is Bill Lacy, director of the Dole Institute.

Viktor Yushchenko’s answer was partly diplomatic and partly sarcastic Monday night.

Bill Lacy, director of the Dole Institute of Politics, asked the former Ukrainian president about the argument that the United States and other nations from the outside were responsible for 2004 Ukrainian protests that became known as the Orange Revolution, which ultimately got the pro-Western Yushchenko elected.

He said he respected America but that U.S. efforts were way overestimated — likely due to rumors in Russia.

“That was exclusively and only the energy of my nation and my people,” said the 57-year-old Yushchenko to a packed house Monday evening as he accepted the 2011 Dole Leadership Prize at the institute on Kansas University’s West Campus.

Plus, he quipped, “there isn’t a single PR campaign in the world” that would have brought millions of people out to protest for days in the freezing Ukrainian winter.

The former president, who lost a rematch to his rival Viktor Yanukovych in 2010, reflected on his country’s struggles for independence and its history, especially in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and spoke about the importance of democracy.

The institute awarded Yushchenko the prize that comes with a $25,000 award to recognize the 20-year anniversary of the fall of the Soviet Union. Past winners have included former President George H.W. Bush, Polish activist Lech Walesa and Congressman John Lewis.

Speaking through an interpreter, Yushchenko recounted his days as a child in eastern Ukraine near the Russian border listening to radio broadcasts each morning, including Voice of America, which was often jammed.

“That was a voice of truth, and it really made a major impact on me,” he said.

As he grew older, he spoke of yearning to help his country.

“Six times (in the 20th century) we declared our independence, and five times we lost it.” Yushchenko said. “And the reason was only one — outside occupation.”

As he was recruited into his country’s political realm from the banking sector in the late 1990s, Yushchenko grew out of favor with government leaders as prime minister and became opposition leader. His opposition party, Our Ukraine, was victorious in the 2000 parliamentary elections.

“I think that through these efforts we came to chart a really new course for the country that brought us close to the motivation, and we really were inspired to part ways,” he said, “to say good-bye to the past, to the Soviet past.”

Yushchenko was poisoned in an apparent assassination attempt during his 2004 campaign for the presidency, but he persevered. And the world watched as Ukrainians protested results of a runoff election in which Yanukovych was declared the winner. The country’s Supreme Court later invalidated the result due to widespread fraud, and Yushchenko eventually won the presidency in the next round.

But as Yushchenko praised the peaceful and enthusiastic protests, he also mentioned the importance of negotiating with his opponents. Democracy will give us an answer how to find a way out of this situation, he remembers telling his friends at the time.

Still it came at a price.

“I gave away a lion’s share of presidential power to the prime minister and the parliament,” he said. “And in exchange the other party recognized as unconstitutional the results of the runoff elections. A second runoff was held.”

He lamented that parliament did not take up many of his major proposals for reform, including for Ukraine’s judiciary and law enforcement, and said the country still has work to do.

“I think it is very important to have a nice structure to defend and to safeguard democracy,” he said.

Julia Sochinska, a Topeka resident who grew up in Ukraine and waved the nation’s flag in the crowd Monday night, said Yushchenko’s time in office did not produce the results the president had hoped, but she felt he laid important groundwork for the country.

“He believes that later it will come,” she said.

Yushchenko placed his hand over his heart in gratitude when he received two standing ovations from the crowd.

“I would like to thank each and every one that your heart is not indifferent to our country and to our people,” he said.

And one more message: “Rock chalk zhay-hawk.”