Kremlin: Ukraine must be ready to surrender its eastern regions
Chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee for Commonwealth of Independent States Affairs, Leonid Kalashnikov, while commenting on Ukraine’s intention to recognize the USSR as an occupier, said that Ukraine must be ready to give up Kharkiv, Dnipro, Donbas and other territories handed over to it in Soviet times, reports RIA Novosti.
According to the Russian deputy, half what today comprises Ukraine would have to be returned to Russia.
“If you take this seriously, half of what comprises Ukraine today would have to be returned to Russia, not just the Crimea, because Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, and Donbas were not part of Ukraine before the Soviet Union was formed,” said Leonid Kalashnikov.
Earlier, the Director of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, Volodymyr Viatrovych, said that Kyiv needs to work to recognize that Ukraine’s membership in the USSR was a “Bolshevik and Communist occupation.” Viatrovych said that modern Ukraine should declare that it is the successor of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, which existed in 1917-1921.
“It is important for us to say that the Ukrainian state is not something that appeared by coincidence in 1991. The Ukrainian state is the result of Ukrainians’ rather long struggle for their independence,” he said.