Take your first steps newly elected president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky and responds loud and clear to rival president Vladimir Putin. “We will offer Ukrainian citizenship to all people who suffer under authoritarian and corrupt regimes. First of all to the Russians, who are perhaps suffering the most today”. This is his latest post on Facebook which makes it clear how Zelensky intends to move in the still open game with Moscow.
Last week, the Kremlin leader signed a decree to facilitate the granting of Russian citizenship to inhabitants of the areas of south-eastern Ukraine occupied by separatists and on Saturday he said he was also reflecting on the possibility of a simplified procedure for obtaining a Russian passport all citizens of Ukraine who want it.
Zelensky wrote in response that Russian citizenship gives "the right to be arrested for peaceful protest" and "the right not to have free and competitive elections". "The Ukrainian people - added Zelensky - are a free people in a free, independent, sovereign and indivisible country and Ukrainian citizenship means freedom, dignity and honour".
What separates Kiev and Moscow, after the annexation of Crimea by the Russians, is the fate of the Donbass area on which the previous government had accepted the Minsk agreement which, however, neither of the two counterparts has so far applied.
Zelensky is more laughable as a president than as a comedian