Russian State Duma Speaker Gennady SeleznСv, who attended the closing ceremony of the TV and cinema forum “Together in the Third Millennium,” spared no words to extol the Crimea’s contribution to the development of ties with Russia. Mr. SeleznСv stressed his closeness to the Crimea: he “was distressed very much when (he) heard a few years ago about the political and economic upheavals that shook the Crimea,” meaning the Crimea’s return to Ukrainian jurisdiction after Yuri Meshkov’s rule.
Visiting the KrymavtoHAZ Company, Mr. SeleznСv emphasized: “I’ve always said what we need is not politicking but Russia’s participation in the Ukrainian economy: in that case there will be no speculation about who is whose or about the way one works. When there are joint ventures like this, there will be opportunities to knit our peoples together by means of the economy.” But then he himself immediately lapsed into politicking. Harping on “the reunification of peoples,” a subject he touched upon at the airport addressing journalists, Mr. SeleznСv began to set the Crimean leadership against the Ukrainian one. As the Crimean Supreme Council Speaker’s press secretary told Crimean newspapers, the Moscow guest said: “Life is hard for everybody today. Thus the Slavic peoples cannot continue to live without each other. And the Belarusians, Ukrainians, and Russians are one nation... Armenia has already collected 1,150,000 signatures (in fact half the permanent population of Armenia) in favor of joining the Russia-Belarus Union. I say to the Ukrainians: look, Armenia is gathering signatures, Kazakhstan says this kind of a Union is necessary, but you remain silent.” Mr. SeleznСv expressed the opinion that “the people are not silent — the point is the rulers do not want it. So let us push the rulers into wanting it. For precisely this exactly reflects the deeply rooted interests of the people.”
It is worth recalling that another “advocate of the people’s deeply rooted interests,” former State Duma Deputy Konstantin Zatulin, was declared persona non grata on the territory of Ukraine for precisely such statements.
