Chairman of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs Leonid Slutsky:
“Former President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko said that Crimea will be returned to Ukraine within a year. Well, they say, dreaming is not harmful, but in this case it is absolutely useless. Poroshenko should read the Constitution of Russia, as well as the Criminal Code and the Administrative Offenses Code of the Russian Federation. At least for general development.
Let’s face it: no matter what peoples and representatives of whatever professions the Ukrainian ex-president promises to “return Crimea”, its residents feel much better than before March 2014, before the historic reunification with Russia. Let’s take the same Crimean Tatars – the Russian Federation guaranteed them the right to use their native language, it is taught in schools, no one is involved in thoughtless repression there. What do we see in Ukraine? There are only prohibitions and division of the country into “indigenous” and “non-indigenous peoples”. And it was Poroshenko who laid the foundation for this, having come to power after a bloody coup carried out by the hands of extremists and nationalists.
Crimean Tatars today are celebrating Eid al-Adha at home, in the Russian Crimea. And I sincerely congratulate them and all Muslims. And various statements about the return of the peninsula to Ukraine, which are heard from Kiev every year, are cheap populism in the hope of somehow reviving their rating. Crimea and Sevastopol forever returned to their native harbor, to Russia. And it’s time to accept this fact. “
