President Petro Poroshenko has spoken against liberally granting Ukrainian citizenship to Russians.
He made this statement at a meeting with researchers at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv on Monday, 29 April.
“And we will not accept that someone will now hand out holy Ukrainian citizenship to Russians. Because all of the 140 million will accept it. Because it is better here. Because Ukrainian citizenship is a high honour,” Interfax-Ukraine quoted Poroshenko as saying.
The president also stressed that he would not allow anyone to buy Ukraine for gas.
“Because the main thing that they are now trying to offer is cheaper gas for Ukraine,” he said.
Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin once again called Ukrainians and Russians one people and stated the need for common citizenship. He was commenting on Russia's plans to issue passports to citizens of Ukraine and the reaction to this by Ukrainian presidential election winner Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
"If anyone makes any decisions in favour of Ukraine, we will support them. If anyone needs advice, we will give it. But the risks facing the world and Ukraine are overwhelming," the president noted.
He added: "If you go to meet with Putin, nobody from the world coalition, which we’ve been carefully creating for five years, will come to you anymore. You will destroy it. And leave Ukraine alone with the aggressor. And then you will only have to kneel down and admit the capitulation."
"And this is precisely what we cannot allow," he said.
He aded: "We will tell you in a timely manner how not to kneel down. Because we know how. We will tell you in a timely manner how to keep our allies and partners. We will tell you in a timely manner how not to be sold for 30 silver pieces of gas, which is definitely a deception. Because we know that."