Kaliningrad Region Governor Vladimir Yegorov refuted statements on separatist trends among region's population

Governor of the Kaliningrad Region, Russia's enclave in the Baltic, Vladimir Yegorov flatly refuted the statements of alleged separatist trends among the region's population.

These statements are "provocative", he said. It is "an invented idea about the Kaliningrad region inhabitants", ascribing them non-existing opinions, the governor said, when speaking at a press conference in the media centre of the Izvestia newspaper on Wednesday.

He knows "the people who use the term 'separatism'", Yegorov said. They are no more than 250 people, comprising a so-called republican party, which cannot be called a party according to the new law, he said.

"I am sure that most of Kaliningrad residents regard the word 'separatism' as abusive or do not know its meaning," the governor declared.

"The Kaliningrad region is part of Russia and will remain such forever," he stressed, excluding the possibility of the region's joining the EU separately from Russia.