SIRIUS /Federal Territory/, March 7. /TASS/. Quite a large delegation of Ukrainian youths took part in the World Youth Festival that took place in the Sirius Federal Territory in far southern Russia on March 1-7, Presidential Administration First Deputy Chief of Staff Sergey Kiriyenko said at a news conference summing up the results of the event.

"As many as 188 countries [took part in the festival], excluding Russia. It would be fair to include ourselves in the count, so that would make it 189. And the third nuance for why the true figure [of participating countries] was 190 is because quite a large delegation of Ukrainian citizens attended," the senior Russian official said. "For obvious reasons, [we cannot call] them an official delegation <…> as we understand that the young people may be criminally prosecuted," he added.

Meanwhile, delegates to the World Youth Festival received threatening calls from Ukraine, Kiriyenko said. "We have registered a line of attacks, and quite soon it became clear that the attacks were coming from Ukraine," he explained.

According to him, the heads of delegations also reported phone calls, emails and messages on social media "threatening terror attacks or consequences; so, attempts were made to stop the delegations [from attending]."

However, not a single delegation was prevented from coming, despite attempts at blackmailing the delegates or threatening them, Kiriyenko concluded.