You're reading: Ukrainian Foreign Ministry: Moscow requested Berlin’s official position on statements made by Yatsenyuk

Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Yevhen Perebyinis has commented on Moscow's request for Berlin's official position on statements made by Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk regarding "the Soviet invasion of Germany and Ukraine."

“We were surprised to learn about the intention by the Russian Foreign Ministry to receive a response to an interview by Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk in the German Foreign Office,” he wrote on his page on Facebook late on Jan. 9.

According to Perebyinis, “in such a case Russia should ask the opinion of many other European countries, to which the Soviet Union, after World War II, exported the totalitarian regime and suppressed any attempt of democratic changes.”

He said that Russia, through its interpretations of Yatsenyuk’s statements, only confirms “that the fact of the physical and ideological Soviet occupation of countries in Central and Eastern Europe, including East Germany, for modern Russia is the same normal phenomenon as the current occupation of Crimea and Donbas.”

“Yatsenyuk implied this and nothing else, while communicating with German journalists. And nobody but Russian journalists and diplomats started looking for another context in his words,” he said.

He noted that it is Russian aggression in Ukraine that poses a major threat to fundamental European values and called on the civilized world “to stop Russia’s attempts to again reshape Europe under its own interests.”

“The main task of the whole civilized world is to stop Russia’s attempts to again reshape Europe under its aggressive interests, make it respect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of other states, and return to the civilized field of generally accepted international relations,” Perebyinis said.

As reported, on Jan. 9, Moscow requested Berlin’s official position on statements made by Yatsenyuk regarding “the Soviet invasion of Germany and Ukraine.”