These are not the victims of the conflict that we talk about the most, and Volodymyr Zelensky seems to want to give them more visibility. The Ukrainian president listed Monday, January 22 in a decree the regions of Russia inhabited, according to him, “historically” by Ukrainians and called for respect for their rights, a text which arouses the ire of Moscow. In this document, published by the Ukrainian presidency, it lists the regions of Krasnodar, Rostov, Belgorod, Bryansk, Voronezh and Kursk, all neighboring Ukraine.
The decree accuses Russia of having committed and will continue to commit “actions aimed at destroying national identity and oppressing Ukrainians, violating their rights and freedoms.” The document calls on the Ukrainian government to develop an “action plan to preserve the national identity of Ukrainians within the Russian Federation, including in the regions they historically inhabit.” It must also list “crimes committed against Ukrainians living or having lived there”, according to the decree which denounces forced Russification, political repression and the deportation of Ukrainians.
Zelensky accused of “territorial claims” by Moscow
Many inhabitants of the Russian territories bordering Ukraine are in fact of Ukrainian origin. The consequence in particular of Tsarist and then Soviet domination, shifting borders and deportations from the Stalinist era. In addition, since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow has been accused of forcibly Russifying the territories it occupies, of rewriting history there and of having deported inhabitants, notably children. Russia is finally accused of oppressing the inhabitants there who refuse to accept Russian nationality.
The Kremlin also claims the annexation of five Ukrainian territories: Crimea in 2014, followed in 2022 by the regions of Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly denied the existence of a Ukrainian nation, believing that Ukrainians belong to the Russian world and that their identity is artificial.
The former president and current number 2 of the Russian Security Council, Dmitri Medvedev, denounced Volodymyr Zelensky’s decree on Monday, accusing him of having “territorial pretensions” and calling him a drug addict. “There is nothing to comment on, since Ukrainians are in fact Russians and Little Russia (Editor’s note, Russian imperialist term referring to Ukrainian territory) is a part of Russia,” he wrote on Telegram.