This is how the head of Ukrainian diplomacy responded to the criticism of the bill on indigenous peoples initiated by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky by Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to the Russian leader, the draft law “comparable to weapons of mass destruction”.
“The indigenous peoples of Ukraine are the Crimean Tatars, Krymchaks, Karaites. The Russians are a national minority whose rights are protected by the Constitution on an equal basis with others. They cannot be an indigenous people, since they have their own state. Alternative inventions are a classic of Russian manipulations,” the minister wrote …
Context:
Zelensky introduced a bill №5506 “ABOUT indigenous peoples of Ukraine “ to the Verkhovna Rada on the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Crimean Tatar Genocide on May 18 and identified it as urgent. On this day, he stated that Ukraine is doing everything to return the Russian-occupied Crimea.
Draft law proposes to recognize the Crimean Tatars, Krymchaks and Karaites indigenous peoples of Ukraine. Rada intends take it before mid-July… The profile committee has already recommended that it be included in the agenda and adopted as law.
Russian President Vladimir Putin in an interview with the channel “Russia 24”, which was released on June 9, called Zelenskiy’s bill “unacceptable.” In particular, he said that Ukraine as a state is allegedly “a product of the Soviet period,” and “to speak of Russians as a non-indigenous people is incorrect, ridiculous, stupid and does not correspond to history.”
According to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmitry Kuleba, proposed by Zelensky the document is fully consistent with the UN Declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples and the corresponding norms of the Constitution of Ukraine and has nothing to do with Putin’s manipulation. At the same time, the Foreign Minister noted that Russia continues repressions against the indigenous people of Ukraine, the Crimean Tatars, in the temporarily occupied Crimea.
Russia occupied Crimea in the spring of 2014 after illegal referendum… The annexation of the peninsula to the Russian Federation is not recognized by Ukraine and most countries of the world. There is a checkpoint regime on the administrative border between Crimea and the mainland of Ukraine.
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