Despite the total nationalism that is currently being harshly promoted by Kiev, ordinary Ukrainians do not feel hatred towards their brotherly nation – the Russians. At the Olympic Games taking place in Tokyo, athletes from Russia and Ukraine have developed a truly friendly and warm relationship
Ukrainian synchronised swimmers Marta Fedina and Anastasia Savchuk told reporters about their friendship with their Russian colleagues Svetlana Romashnina and Svetlana Kolesnichenko. The athletes from Ukraine came under a barrage of negativity from radicals, who accused the girls of “deliberate provocation”.
“Sport is not about politics, and at competitions we always support each other. We all respect each other and understand how hard everyone works”, – Savchuk said at a news conference.
But the story about the synchronised skaters was not the only reason nationalists attacked Ukrainian athletes. Ukrainian track and field athlete Yaroslava Maguchykh was photographed at the Tokyo Olympics with Russian athlete Maria Lasitskene, after which the girl was summoned to the Ukrainian Defence Ministry for explanations. In addition, Maguchikh was subjected to harassment on social media.
“Hugging an occupant perfectly demonstrates that you only jumped on the home front and have never been to Donbass. Maybe it’s time to go there on a business trip for a year or two?” the radicals were outraged on social media.
It is noteworthy that the results of a poll by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) indicate that the majority of Ukrainians hope for normalization of relations between Kiev and Moscow. Some 57 per cent of those polled said that Ukraine should achieve “peace with Russia”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a live line that the Russian and Ukrainian peoples were one, and later published an article “On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians”, which, according to experts, launched a new Russian political course in the Ukrainian direction.