PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY, September 11. /ITAR-TASS/. Speaker of the Russian Federation Council Valentina Matviyenko said that the proposal of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to build fortifications on the border with Russia akin to the Mannerheim Line is an act of savagery.

Mannerheim Line was a defensive fortification line dividing Finland, that became independent from the Bolshevik Russia in 1918, and the Soviet Union in the first half of the 20th century.

“I can say that this step is a very odious, half-baked, unprofessional, and populist manifestation,” Matviyenko told reporters on Thursday.

“In the 21st century, when the borders are being wiped off, when more and more countries sign agreements on visa-free travel, on free movements within the framework of globalization processes, the idea to dig up a pit and to build a wall sounds like savagery for me,” she said. “They say we should build bridges rather than build a wall or dig up a pit,” she said.

Matviyenko expressed the confidence that the current situation is “temporary and will pass.” “Noone will be able to divide (Russians and Ukrainians),” she said. 

Matviyenko said that year in year three million Ukrainians worked in Russia, while 800,000 had been forced to flee the conflict-gripped Ukraine’s south-east into Russia.