Russian President Vladimir Putin does not know that his article about Ukraine has become mandatory for studying in the army. This was stated at a briefing on July 16 by the press secretary of the Russian leader Dmitry Peskov.
"No, the president does not know about this. But, on the other hand, this is quite understandable, because we are talking about a very important, conceptually important document that the Supreme Commander— in-Chief wrote, and, of course, it is quite natural that the Armed Forces are studying this," he told reporters.
Earlier, the media reported that, on the instructions of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, Putin's article was included as one of the mandatory topics for classes with military personnel on military-political training.
Article of the President " About the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians " was published on July 12 on the Kremlin's website. In it, the head of state noted, among other things, that in Ukraine today we are talking about a forced change of national identity. The President mentioned the law on the indigenous peoples of Ukraine, adopted by the Verkhovna Rada.
He added that the course of forced assimilation, the formation of an ethnically pure Ukrainian state, aggressively disposed towards Russia, is comparable in its consequences to the use of weapons of mass destruction. Russian Russians may be reduced by "hundreds of thousands, or even millions"as a result of such a gross artificial gap between Russians and Ukrainians, according to Putin.
At the same time, the Russian leader called the "wall" that arose between the parties a tragedy. In his opinion, such a situation arose because of "our own mistakes made in different periods."
In turn, the President of Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky, promised to give an answer to the publication Putin also appreciated the fact that the article is also presented in Ukrainian. At the same time, he said that he considers the words about the fraternal people to be untrue.