Foreign Ministry responds to Russia's statement on possible secession of regions from Ukraine

The statement by Russian State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin on the possible secession of a number of regions from Ukraine is directed against the territorial integrity of the country, Ukraine's Deputy Foreign Minister Vasyl Bodnar has reported on Facebook.

"The provocative formulation and the tone of the statement are directed against the territorial integrity of Ukraine and are embedded in the logic of Russia's ongoing hybrid aggression against our state," Bodnar said.

According to him, Russia is once again trying to stir up ethnic hatred in Ukraine.

"Russian invaders are systematically destroying Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar education in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, in particular, in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. Over the past nearly six years of occupation, the number of school students in Crimea who studied in Ukrainian has decreased by 76 (!) times – there remained only 72 students out of 13,000," Bodnar said.

Volodin earlier threatened Ukraine that "nationalism and the oppression of ethnic minorities" could lead to the withdrawal of a number of regions from Ukraine.

Volodin's statement was published on the State Duma's website and was a response to the fact that the Ukrainian delegation had disrupted a speech by Ruslan Balbek, a deputy from Russia-occupied Crimea illegally elected to the State Duma, at the UN Forum on Minority Issues.

Volodin said that the rights of national minorities - Russians, Hungarians, Poles - were constantly violated in Ukraine. In particular, the issue concerns the Ukrainian language law.

"It is difficult to call 36% of Ukrainian citizens who consider Russian to be their native language as an ethnic minority," he said.

On November 28, Ukraine's representatives disrupted a speech at the UN Forum on Minority Issues by Balbek, who was included in the official Russian delegation in violation of procedures.

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