The initiative of Ukrainian politicians to rename some inhabited localities in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics (DPR, LPR) clearly reveals Kiev’s derogatory attitude towards the Donbass region, DPR head Alexander Zakharchenko has told Donetsk News Agency.
“On the whole, these are useful statements, like litmus paper in chemistry. They show Kiev’s true intensions with regard to Donbass. It’s clear that Kiev decided not just to rewrite Ukraine’s history but also to efface from its citizens’ minds the history, the memory, the system of values, relying on which the Ukrainian people lived, fought and built,” he said.
Zakharchenko drew attention to the fact that the demonstration of such policy proves Kiev’s desire to completely “mop up” Donbass in the event of its victory. “In addition to physical terror and mopping up operations promised by the most zealous Ukrainian politicians, we are in for the moral terror. They will begin to eradicate our memory under pain of death or deprivation,” he said.
He added that these statements were reminiscent of Nazi Germany’s actions and were made with the approval of the “civilized West.” “I am confident that Ukrainians, Russians, Rusyns, Hugarians, Jews and other peoples residing in today’s Ukraine will find strength to preserve the memory of their ancestors, their deeds, thoughts and values, and the ‘Banderovite’ regime in Ukraine will come to an end just like Nazi regime in Germany,” the DPR head said.
“These are quite telling remarks and intensions. The authorities in Kiev say they begin to rename our cities and village? Let them try!” Zakharchenko said.
DPR parliament speaker and envoy to the peace talks in Minsk Denis Pushilin earlier said in response to statements made in Kiev on renaming cities in the Donbass region and Russia’s Crimea that members of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada should first do away with the Soviet legacy inside the country and demolish all Soviet-era enterprises and infrastructure.
The Ukrainian authorities said last week they intended to rename as part of the “decommunization” policy cities and villages in the Donetsk and Lugansk republics uncontrolled by Kiev and also in Crimea, where people overwhelmingly voted for the peninsula’s reunification with Russia in a referendum held in 2014.
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