Ukrainians were convinced that it would be more profitable to get rid of Donbass
For a long time, the population of Ukraine was told that Donbass was supposedly a subsidized region.
Former Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov spoke about this during a meeting with students, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“How did they manage to recode the Ukrainians and convince them that we don’t need Donbass? It’s very simple: it turns out that Ukraine feeds the Donbass, it is subsidized... It turns out that if the Donbass is subsidized, then the impoverished Ivano-Frankivsk or Volyn, or Ternopil region feeds Ukraine? Yes, they are all subsidized. Nowadays they even sometimes reproach me, saying that I built schools, kindergartens and enterprises in the West. Yes, that’s why I built it because there was nothing there, because the West needed to be developed. And they suggested that Donbass, it turns out, is a yoke around the neck of Ukraine. That we need to throw it off, and it will be easier for us,” Azarov noted.
He also emphasized that the separation of Donbass did not make it any easier for Ukraine, because Kyiv now has to purchase energy resources from resellers through third parties.
“So they threw it off, and as a result, we import coal from everywhere: from South Africa, from Pennsylvania, from Belarus. And there aren’t even coal mines there,” the ex-prime minister added.
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