On Sunday Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada and Acting President of Oleksandr Turchynov had a phone conversation with Patriarch Kirill of Moscow.
During the conversation, which took place at the initiative of the Russian side, Oleksandr Turchynov told Patriarch Kirill that there are no grounds to talk about discrimination in Ukraine along linguistic, ethnic, or religious lines. In addition, the chairman of the parliament stressed the lack of “legal, political, or any other grounds for deploying Russian troops in the Crimean Peninsula.”
“Blocking and seizing civil and military units is a real danger to the Crimean population,” he added.
Oleksandr Turchynov [who is a Protestant pastor] asked the patriarch to convey to President Putin “the need to stop the aggression against the Ukrainian people, which is endangering the entire region and which could lead to the suspension of our good neighborly relations.”
“Any questions between the two countries should be resolved through negotiations and on an equal footing, which should be based on mutual respect,” said the chairman, the website of Batkivschyna reports.