08 June 2021, Tuesday, 18:29 205

Russia Asks OSCE And Council Of Europe To Condemn Zelenskyy’s Draft Law On Indigenous Peoples

Редактор: Daria Zubkova

Russia has asked the parliamentary assemblies of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Council of Europe (PACE) to condemn President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s draft law on indigenous peoples because it considers it discriminatory.

This was announced in a statement on the website of the Russian Federation’s State Duma, the Ukrainian News Agency reports.

"Members of the State Duma adopted a statement ‘On the Ukrainian authorities’ Initiative to Exclude Russian and other Peoples from the list of Indigenous Peoples of Ukraine" at a plenary session on Tuesday, June 8. Parliamentarians are appealing to the CIS IPA (the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of the Member States of the Commonwealth of Independent States), the PA CSTO (the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization), the parliamentary assemblies of the OSCE and PACE to condemn the attempt made in Ukraine to divide the country’s population into "indigenous" and "non-indigenous," which could have the most serious consequences for the very existence of Ukraine as a state," the statement said.

Russian parliamentarians consider Zelenskyy’s initiative "an insult to historical memory and a blatant provocation aimed at exacerbating tensions and conflicts both within Ukraine and abroad."

"With the stroke of a pen, millions of Russians (17.2% of the population, according to the latest census), as well as hundreds of thousands of Belarusians (0.57%) and Moldovans (0.54%), who are among the three largest ethnic minorities in Ukraine, are deprived of the right to consider themselves indigenous peoples on the territory of Ukraine. Neither the Hungarians, the Rusyns of Transcarpathia, Jews, Bulgarians in Odesa region, nor the Greeks in the Azov Sea region will have the right to consider themselves as indigenous peoples if the ‘urgent law’ is adopted," the statement said.

The State Duma also believes that the draft law violates Ukraine's international obligations.

During a debate, the State Duma’s Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin called on the PACE and the OSCE to set up monitoring groups to assess what is happening in the country.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, Zelenskyy has proposed that the parliament define the concept of "indigenous people" and legislatively establish that the indigenous peoples of Ukraine are the Crimean Tatars, the Karaites, and the Krymchaks.