Zelensky suggests steps to win minds of inhabitants of occupied areas

President Volodymyr Zelensky believes objective information on Ukraine's policy will help integrate into Ukraine residents of certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions and the temporarily occupied Crimea.

The head of state made a comment while speaking in an interview with Dom TV, Ukrinform reports.

"I’ve always said this: territories are very important, but first of all, it’s people. And today it is difficult for people there to resist information attacks, hardships, to resist and remain Ukrainians in soul and heart. It is difficult because people need to survive. I’m a father. And I do understand that people have to feed their children. Say, here’s a school. It flies a ‘DPR’ flag. But where should a teacher work? And so the teacher goes to this school. And he needs to speak with children somehow, and to try somehow to convey to them objective information – so here’s the task. This would be a victory in the information space. It’s much more important than any bullet," Zelensky said.

According to him, Ukrainian broadcasting in the temporarily occupied territories will allow keeping in touch with Ukrainians in Donbas and Crimea. "They’re really our Ukrainians. It's really our home, our house, which is Ukraine. And we broadcast out there and say: ‘We all live in the same house. Now, temporarily, we’re in different rooms. But this is temporary. We’re all under one roof, that’s for sure.’ We need to talk to people there. We must not lose our connection," Zelensky stressed.

As an example, the president cited the Dom TV channel (translates as home, or house), which, in his opinion, should reach out not only to the temporarily occupied areas but also to internally displaced persons living in government-controlled territories, while keeping in touch with their relatives who remained in the occupied Donbas and Crimea.

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