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Russia has great respect for everything Ukrainian, including language, culture — Putin

The Russian leader noted that there are three million Russian citizens of Ukrainian origin in Russia

© Gavriil Grigorov/POOL/TASS

MOSCOW, October 5. /TASS/. Russia has always had tremendous respect for the Ukrainian people, culture and language, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday at a meeting with the finalists of the Teacher of the Year contest.

He pointed out that the plan for the development of new regions of Russia should be comprehensive and include the development of the educational process.

"There will be a separate plan for assistance to Donbass, Zaporozhye, and Kherson, of course. I already said this in my opening speech. It should be comprehensive, it should be combined not only with the development of infrastructure, which is obvious. The same also applies to sports infrastructure and medical care," he said.

"Despite the current tragedy we have always had great respect for the Ukrainian people, Ukrainian culture, Ukrainian language and literature, and so on. And we have never permitted anything that is allowed in Ukraine in relation to Russian culture and the Russian language," Putin said.

Putin stressed that Russia would go its own way, treating everything Ukrainian with respect.

"We have three million Russian citizens of Ukrainian origin. We do not make any distinctions and are not going to make any distinctions between Russians and Ukrainians, but, while proceeding along our own constructive way, without any doubt, we will brush off everything that prevents us from moving forward. It is very important to arrange for the educational process in a way that has always been Russia’s pride and will remain so in the future," he concluded.

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