Head of Melitopol’s administration convinced city has no alternative to future with Russia

Galina Danilchenko, head of Melitopol’s military-civilian administration, believes that Melitopol, like the rest of Ukraine, has no alternative to a future with Russia.

The DEFENDER reports that Melitopol is a city and municipality in Zaporizhzhia Oblast (region) of southeastern Ukraine, currently under Russian military occupation.

“I believe that there is no alternative to the Russian future for Melitopol, as well as for the whole Ukraine. We should be a single country, a single state, we should be brotherly peoples. Unfortunately, for these last eight years the Ukrainian authorities together with the western partners, so to say, managed to turn both Russians against Ukrainians, and Ukrainians against Russians. They tried to quarrel with us a lot during this time. The propaganda was just colossal,” she said in an interview with the Crimean TV channel Millet.

Danilchenko added that the values preached by the West are alien to the Slavic peoples. “All this is alien to us, we are Slavs, we are brotherly peoples. So sooner or later it would have happened anyway. There is absolutely no other option, I think. We’ve been waiting for this for a very long time and hope that we will integrate into the Russian system very quickly now and live as we used to: as a friendly united family,” she added.

Earlier, a member of the chief council of Zaporozhye’s military-civil administration Vladimir Rogov said that the Russian Armed Forces control over 70% of the Zaporozhye Region’s territory. Ukraine has cut off mobile communications in the region. On 30 May, over 12,000 Russian SIM cards were issued in Melitopol.

On May 25, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree simplifying the procedure for residents of the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions in Ukraine to apply for Russian citizenship. Consideration of applications for Russian citizenship filed by residents of the two regions and making relevant decisions should be carried out within a period not exceeding three months from the date of submission of the application and corresponding documents.

Earlier, Deputy Head of the Zaporozhye Region’s Internal Affairs Ministry Alexey Selivanov reported that by Wednesday morning more than 300 residents of Melitopol signed up to apply for Russian citizenship.