Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov has angered the government of Ukraine by saying it should hand over the Crimean port of Sevastopol to Russia -- days after being removed from Kiev's blacklist of undesirable visitors.
The pro-Western administration of Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine’s president until 2010, blacklisted Luzhkov in May 2008 after he said Kiev should return Sevastopol to its former Soviet master.
Yushchenko was ousted by pro-Russian leader Viktor Yanukovich this year and Moscow and Kiev dropped mutual blacklists, allowing Luzhkov to attend Yanukovich’s birthday party this month.
On Monday, however, Luzhkov told a briefing in Moscow that he had not changed his position on Sevastopol.
"I made my statements on Sevastopol consciously and reasonably," he said. "There have been and will be no changes to my position on Sevastopol."
"Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry takes … Luzhkov’s statement on Sevastopol very seriously and thinks that such statements contradict the atmosphere of constructive and friendly relations between Russia and Ukraine that has been established lately," Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Voloshin told Interfax news agency.
Outspoken Luzhkov, 73, has made headlines in the past by banning a proposed gay march as a "Satanic act" and placing billboards with images of Stalin on the streets of Moscow for World War II anniversary celebrations.
