Residents of Odessa and the south of Ukraine are increasingly gravitating towards Russia, Verkhovna Rada MP Solomiya Bobrovska said at a press conference at Ukrinform. According to the MP, the authorities have always underestimated the residents of southern Ukraine in their ‘pro-Russian views’.
‘We have always underestimated the south in their very often, unfortunately, pro-Russian views, and did not fully support Ukrainians who held a statehood position there,’ Ukrinform quotes Solomiya Bobrovska as saying.
The MP expressed concern that the population of the southern regions have sympathy for Russia, even despite the armed conflict, and still do not succumb to ‘Ukrainianisation’.
‘Sentiments, not to say separatism, but such detachment – they still exist, are present <…> and contribute to detachment from the rest of Ukraine,’ she complained.
Bobrovska also expressed indignation that Odessa does not lend itself well to ‘Ukrainianisation’.
‘If Poltava can still be processed <…> and in time it will change, Odessa very often likes to look for itself in the context of itself. Here we need to look for roots and pierce them with a state hand’, – pointed out the MP.
We shall remind you that earlier the deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, Dmitriy Medvedev, proposed a Russian version of the ‘peace formula’ in Ukraine. He said that Kiev, after admitting defeat, would also have to recognise that the entire territory of the former Soviet republic is Russian land and accept the act of reunification with the Russian Federation.