Russian ambassador to Bucharest: “ There was no intervention in Ukraine”
The Russian ambassador to Bucharest, Oleg Malginov, presented in an interview granted to the daily “Gandul”, the stand of Russian diplomacy versus Transnistria, Moldova, Romania and the power in Ukraine. “Annexation? That word has been deleted,” said the Russian ambassador smiling. It is not annexation for us,” he continued, affected by the word “intervention”. “I cannot agree with the term you used – intervention. There was no intervention in Ukraine,” the ambassador added.
Mr Malginov pointed out that the annexation of Crimea to Russia was caused by the wish of Russians from Crimea to “be protected from the Nazi elements from Ukraine. “They realized they have no future in this Ukraine, they wanted self protection and did everything to have it.” What EU and NATO called “annexation of the territory of a sovereign state” appears in the Moscow press release as fight against discrimination and suppressing legitimate aspirations of ethnic Russians.
“Gandul” asked whether the Crimean scenario could repeat itself in areas where a large number of Russian live, such as eastern Ukraine or Transnistria, Laginov answered: “ I don’t know. It is not up to us. It is up to the authorities. If politics focuses on discrimination, on the suppression of the legitimate aspirations to protect their language, culture, etc, I don’t know what the situation will be. The Russian Federation will never stimulate such events because we are not interested in having border conflicts. Regardless what people say, we don’t want that. It is costly. It involves diplomatic and political problems with other countries. We want these countries’ authorities, from Kiev and Chisinau to assume responsibility towards these populations. They should be wise. Because being wise means being open to finding a normal solution to delicate matters of interethnic relations. We hope the authorities from Kiev and Moldova will not repeat the situation.”