OREANDA-NEWS. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with the German magazine Spiegel that he doubted the results of the polls according to which the majority of residents of the self-proclaimed republics of the Donbass reported about their wish to live in Russia.

“I know that there are those who advocate for Ukraine. There are those who are lost. And there are those who are for Russia. Let the latter leave,” the politician said.

Zelensky stated that everyone can choose where he wants to live. However, according to him, it is dishonest to say “I am a citizen of Russia and this is my land” being in the territory of Ukraine. “That should not be,” the president concluded.

As for the “lost,” Zelensky means people who have retained a Ukrainian passport and simultaneously acquired a Russian citizenship in order to receive social assistance from both sides. “I have no moral right to reproach them for this. We should struggle to get these people back. But I will not struggle for those who consider themselves exclusively Russians,” the Ukrainian leader added.

According to a survey conducted in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics in October 2019, 42.9 % of Donbass residents said they never thought about receiving Russian citizenship, 34.2 % of respondents said they thought about it, 7.4 % reported that have already got Russian passports. At the same time, 57.8 % of the respondents described themselves as citizens of Ukraine. 80.8 % of people never thought about leaving the Donbass, most of the rest (11.1 %) would agree to move to Russia, 5.2 % want to live to Ukraine.