Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories Oleksiy Reznikov ridiculed the recent article by Russian President Vladimir Putin who once again put forward the “one people” thesis.
In particular, Reznikov commented on the issue of the church. Strange are “the attempts to present the Ukrainian Orthodox Church as one derived from the Moscow one. After all, the Moscow ‘mother church’ is several centuries younger than the Ukrainian ‘daughter church.’ And St. Sophia Cathedral is more than a clear proof of this fact,” Oleksiy Reznikov wrote in his blog on Dzerkalo Tyzhnia.
He added that, when the Russian leader had called Yaroslav the Wise “our prince” and his daughter Anna – “Russian”, even school students in Ukraine laughed.
“In general, in historical science, the state of the IX-XIII centuries, of which Ukraine is descendant unlike Russia, which seeks to be seen as one, is called Kyivan Rus”. And the Russians were absolutely okay with this for many years. Because in the oldest chronicles, Kyiv is referred to as ‘mother of Russian cities.’ Suddenly, a few years ago, they started changing the name ‘Kyivan’ to ‘Old’ wherever possible,” the official stressed.
