MOSCOW, April 01. /ITAR-TASS/. The current election campaign in Ukraine could push the country’s mainly Russian-speaking south-east towards secession, the head of the State Duma Committee for Education, Vyacheslav Nikonov, told a lower house session on Tuesday.
“It is evident that the east and the south of Ukraine will not recognize the present authorities and will hardly fully recognize the results of the elections they have organized,” said Nikonov, an expert in international issues from the United Russia party.
“They have more than enough reasons for that, all the more as hundreds of participants in anti-government protests have been arrested by the Ukrainian Security Council and the Interior Ministry that are now controlled by the CIA,” the politician added.
“Those who are not arrested are beaten up by activists of the Right Sector movement, their families receive threats and their houses are set on fire,” he continued.
He said the election campaign could prompt the south-east of the country towards secession from Ukraine, as “ethnic Russians don’t see the reasons for staying part of the country which is ruled by a nationalist regime, where the Russian language is squeezed out, and the living standards are four times lower than in Russia and three times lower than in Belarus”.
“Economically, the south-east has prospects only in integration with Russia, which is a consumer of its goods that the European Union does not need, like Ukraine itself,” Nikonov said.