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Ukraine forms 'cult of betrayal,' erects monument to Mazepa — MP

"Zelensky's actions to erect a monument to the traitor Mazepa in Kiev fully fit into his collaborationist logic," Mikhail Sheremet said

SIMFEROPOL, June 29. /TASS/. The intention to erect a monument to Hetman Ivan Mazepa in Kiev serves to forming of a "cult of betrayal" in Ukrainian society, Mikhail Sheremet, a State Duma deputy from the Republic of Crimea, said in an interview with TASS.

Earlier, Vladimir Zelensky said the monument would be installed in the center of Kiev on Taras Shevchenko Boulevard, where the monument to Vladimir Lenin used to be.

"Zelensky's actions to erect a monument to the traitor Mazepa in Kiev fully fit into his collaborationist logic. Realizing that the decline of Ukrainian neo-Nazism is nearing, he purposefully continues to form a cult of betrayal, apostasy and treason in Ukrainian society to shift the bloody crimes he personally committed onto the shoulders of the remaining citizens of the betrayed country," Sheremet said.

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called Zelensky's plans another "decision by a drug dictator" who again betrayed his ancestors. Zakharova gave examples of how Shevchenko called Mazepa in his works and how the hetman was described in Ukrainian folklore: "the dog Mazepa," "the cursed Mazepa," "the enemy Mazepa," "the famous anathema Ivan Mazepa," "the cursed Ivan Mazepa."

About Mazepa

Mazepa was a collaborator, military and political figure of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, Hetman of left-bank Ukraine. During the Northern War, believing that Peter I was losing, he sided with the Swedish King Charles XII. For treason to the oath, he was sentenced to civil execution with the deprivation of titles and awards. Russian Orthodox Church anathematized Mazepa for violating the oath of allegiance to the Russian tsar given on the Gospel, as well as for allowing Swedish soldiers to desecrate Orthodox churches.

In 2008, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko issued a decree on the installation of monuments to Mazepa in Kiev and Poltava, and said he would try to do everything to remove the anathema from him. After the coup of 2014, streets began to be named after Mazepa, he is depicted on a banknote and a 10 hryvnia coin. In August 2022, Zelensky named a Ukrainian corvette after Mazepa.

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