The State Duma of Russia calls on the international community to condemn the bill of President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy On the indigenous peoples of Ukraine, since due to this initiative, millions of Russians, hundreds of thousands of Belarusians and Moldovans were deprived of the right to consider themselves indigenous peoples on the territory of Ukraine.
“The State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation considers the very fact of this legislative initiative of the President of Ukraine to be a flagrant provocation aimed at exacerbating tensions and conflicts both inside Ukraine and abroad. Millions of Russians were deprived of the right to consider themselves indigenous peoples on the territory of Ukraine with a stroke of the pen (17, 2 percent of the population, according to the latest census), hundreds of thousands of Belarusians (0,7 percent) and Moldovans (0,54 percent), which are among the three largest national minorities in Ukraine. Neither the Hungarians and Ruthenians of Transcarpathia, nor Jews, nor Bulgarians in the Odessa region, nor Greeks in the Azov region will not be able to consider themselves indigenous”,- the message said.
It is noted that the State Duma considers the bill introduced by the President of Ukraine as an insult to historical memory, a new attempt to drive a wedge between the Ukrainian, Russian and other indigenous peoples of Ukraine.
“MPs of the State Duma appeals to the Interparliamentary Assembly of Member States of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the parliaments of the member states of the European Union with an appeal to condemn the action taken in Ukraine as an attempt to divide its population into “indigenous” and “non-indigenous”, which may have the most serious consequences for the very existence of Ukraine as a state”,- the statement added.
We remind that on May 18, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that he had submitted an urgent bill on indigenous peoples to the parliament of Ukraine. He added that soon the MPs will consolidate the status of the indigenous peoples of Ukraine, in particular the Crimean Tatars.