MOSCOW, August 22. /TASS/. Ukraine is dying as a state, a process that started a decade ago and is only being accelerated by the armed conflict, the country’s former Prime Minister Nikolay Azarov (2010-2014) said.

"Ukraine is a dying country. And it began to perish after the policy planned after the coup d’etat [in 2014] began to be implemented. That is, the extermination of all things Russian - language, culture, genetic memory and so on. Accordingly, all economic ties were broken off. It began to die back then. <...> The conflict is merely speeding up the death of the state," he wrote on Facebook (prohibited in Russia due to its ownership by Meta, which has been designated as extremist).

According to him, Vladimir Zelensky and his predecessor Pyotr Poroshenko have contributed greatly to the country’s demise. "Even Zelensky himself has to admit that a huge number of Ukrainians have emigrated <...>. At this time, per my estimates, Ukraine’s population has fallen to approximately 17 mln people, while it used to be 45 mln. Isn’t this the process of the state dying?" he added.

The ex-premier also highlighted the country's economic decline and enormous budget deficit. "If the conflict isn’t stopped, Ukraine will die as a state," he concluded. That said, Azarov pointed out that "it is impossible to negotiate with the Zelensky regime."