Can Ukraine live without Russia?

When is Russia going to complete the exchange of prisoners? Can Ukraine live without Russia? This does not sound likely as all of Ukraine's history is about the history of relations between Russia and the United States. There is no Ukraine there at all.

Inna Novikova, Pravda.Ru editor-in-chief talked about these and other issues in an interview with State Duma deputy Yevgeny Fedorov.

"What's happening in the situation with the exchange of prisoners between Russia and Ukraine?"

"As a member of the Russian parliament, I can say that Russia is simply a mediator, just like France and Germany. This is the so-called Quartet, which acts as a mediator in the conflict between the people's republics of Donetsk, Luhansk, and Ukraine. Accordingly, like France, Russia conducts mediation activities and builds a balance of interests between the parties. This is the work of any intermediary party.

"At the same time, as a politician with an extensive experience, I'd like to say that Russia, which was built on the principles that were formed in 1991, will disappear. It became obvious after the situation with the Crimea. How can one abandon territory at all? Let's imagine that we are in 1941. Could we abandon Ukraine after Hitler invaded it? Such an idea could never occur to anyone back then. However, we did that in 1991, and it was a deadly contradiction.

"After the Crimea referendum, it became clear that this is a false basis for building the state. Russia could collapse further. We could have witnessed the collapse of the Russian Federation after the collapse of the USSR. We had two choices: either to break the country down further, or build it again to go back to the Fatherland that we received from our ancestors.

Russia's move to reunite with the Crimea was an extremely important step in this direction. The same applies to Transnistria, Donetsk, Luhansk, Abkhazia, Ossetia. This historical contradiction is obvious. Why did Russia even bother to go, for example, to Transnistria? We support sovereignty, the sovereignty of Moldova in particular. What was it then? We did that because we, as Soviet people, still think of our Fatherland within the borders of 1945.

"In Transnistria, we granted Russian citizenship to 120,000 people. Yet, Ukrainian and Moldovan citizens outnumber Russian citizens there. It was the beginning of the 1990s, and it was Yeltsin who sent Russian troops there. Why did Russia go to Moldova? Was it because they discriminate the Russians there? I'm sure that they discriminate the Russians on Brighton Beach, because the crime rate in the USA is high. I am certain that Russia will not collapse after the Crimea. If we return our territories, it means that we are recovering."

"President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky said that Ukraine continues to pursue its course to NATO and Europe."

"Of course. He himself is a Russian-speaking individual, just like his predecessor Poroshenko. Yet, they perfectly realise that Ukraine is not going to return anything. It will never work out for them, because building a new Fatherland is an extremely difficult historical process that includes major wars, huge losses among the population. We were building our Russian Fatherland for a thousand years. It goes about hundreds of years, but never decades. Ukraine will have to roll back to Russia, because they will never be able to build one of their own. As a matter of fact, Ukraine's history is all about the history of relations between Russia and the United States.

Also read our previous interviews with Mr. Fedorov:

Russia to liberate the world from US occupation

Lenin planted the seeds that destroyed the USSR

USA instructs Russian Central Bank how to strangle Russian economy