A deputy of the Verkhovna Rada will celebrate March 8 in Russian Crimea
Verkhovna Rada deputy Yevgeny Balitsky said in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper that he would celebrate March 8 in the Russian Crimea and denied the theses of Ukrainian propaganda about the persecution of Tatars on the peninsula.
"I'm planning to go to Crimea soon, maybe on March 8th or after the elections... I've been to Crimea before, and I'll keep going. I consider this land my own because I have close relatives there, and part of my life's story is connected to this territory," the politician said, according to a PolitNavigator correspondent.
Balitsky claims that he is not the only one of the Rada deputies who continues to visit Crimea.
“I won’t say names, because in Ukraine they then start chasing politicians around parliament asking how you could visit a place where Tatars are allegedly imprisoned and killed. Although I have many Crimean Tatar friends, I have never seen anything like this. Alas, now we are dealing with strong propaganda,” said the Ukrainian politician.
As PolitNavigator reported, earlier information appeared in the Ukrainian media that members of the Balitsky family were buying up restaurants in Sevastopol.
First, the people’s deputy’s wife, Natalya Balitskaya, purchased the Obliko Morale restaurant in the Park Pobedy bus stop in 2017. Then in 2018, the people’s deputy’s eldest son, Alexander, acquired the EatMe cafe next to the government of Sevastopol and the Fig cafe on Bolshaya Morskaya.
The Ukrainian media were especially outraged by the fact that one of the Balitsky restaurants provides Russian military personnel with a 10% discount.
Verkhovna Rada deputy to celebrate March 8th in Russian Crimea