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Putin hopes to achieve agreement with Zelensky on citizenship issue

Putin believes that Russians and Ukrainians are one people and will benefit from common citizenship

© Alexey Druzhinin/Russian presidential press service/TASS Archive

MOSCOW, April 29. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin hopes that he will be able to achieve agreement with Ukraine’s President-elect Vladimir Zelensky, if the idea of common citizenship is on the agenda.

"Very well," Putin said about Zelensky’s remark he would be prepared to issue Ukrainian passports to all Russians.

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"This indicates we will come to terms, possibly, because we have a great deal in common," Putin said, adding that he was referring to the relations between Russian and Ukrainian peoples.

"I’ve said more than once that Ukrainians and Russians are brotherly peoples. Moreover, I believe that they are one people - with their own cultural, linguistic and historical features, but in fact one people," Putin said. "If we have common citizenship, both Russians and Ukrainians will stand to gain. We will be stronger and more successful."

"If they begin to grant citizenship to Russians in Ukraine and we give our citizenship to Ukrainians in Russia, we will promptly achieve a common denominator and the expected result," Putin said. "We will have common citizenship."

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