MOSCOW, August 21. /TASS/. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s statement denying the brotherhood of Russian and Ukrainian peoples was dictated by Western mentors, head of State Duma’s Committee on CIS Affairs, Eurasian Integration and Ties with Compatriots Leonid Slutsky told TASS on Friday.
"Western mentors are speaking through Poroshenko. He is obviously under strong influence of those foreign managers who were mentioned by Russian President Vladimir Putin in Crimea," Slutsky noted.
Denying the brotherhood of Russian and Ukrainian peoples is "complete historical amnesia," he stressed. "Russians and Ukrainian were and remain brotherly nations with common history and culture. And for a long time we used to be part of one country that defeated Nazism," the lawmaker added.
Slutsky said that "Poroshenko continues to talk about war with Russia, like he hypnotized." "But we are not at war with anybody. This is an internal Ukrainian conflict," he stressed.
"Current Ukrainian authorities are under the influence of destructive illusions imposed on them by their Western ‘friends’," the lawmaker continued. "It is high time for Poroshenko to wake up and understand that no one in Europe is waiting for Kiev with open arms, and Ukraine still remains a ‘bargaining chip’ in West’s geopolitical strategy on weakening Russia," Slutsky said.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said earlier that Ukrainians "have no brotherly nations in time of war." "There is one Ukrainian nation that looks toward Europe and the Russian nation that is in deep crisis," he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in Crimea on August 17 that he hopes that difficulties in Ukraine will end and this country will develop dynamically together with Russia.