The head of the Ukrainian party "Golos", the deputy of the Verkhovna Rada, Kira Rudik, announced that her faction is in favor of a bill establishing the amount of monetary compensation that Kiev can demand from Moscow for the alleged "damage".

Rudik said this during her speech at the Kiev security forum.

According to her, the corresponding project is currently "being considered by the committee."

“We need such a law - to calculate what losses Russia inflicts on Ukraine, because we see that there are international precedents when this money was returned,” RIA Novosti quotes the deputy.

Rudik said that it is not yet clear how much Kiev should demand - "$ 5 billion, $ 50 billion or $ 500 billion."

She also expressed the opinion that Ukraine will definitely demand compensation, but did not specify exactly when this might happen.

State Duma Deputy Ruslan Balbek, commenting on Rudik's statement in an interview with RT, noted that Ukrainian politicians "are driven by an irrepressible craving for self-promotion."

“Today, in the Verkhovna Rada, Crimea has become a kind of media springboard for various individuals who compete with each other in public statements on how to“ return ”the peninsula to Ukraine and how much money to demand from Moscow.

But, unfortunately, we do not hear sensible proposals in the Rada on how to establish and resume dialogue between our countries, ”he said.

Recall that Crimea returned to Russia in 2014 as a result of a referendum, the results of which the Ukrainian side refuses to recognize.

More than 96% of the inhabitants of the peninsula who took part in the plebiscite voted for reunification with Russia.

Sergei Tsekov, member of the Federation Council Committee on International Affairs from the Republic of Crimea, in turn, recalled that Russia is actively involved in the restoration of the region's infrastructure.

“Russia will not pay anything to anyone.

They always forget that a referendum was held in Crimea.

Russia is now restoring all this, investing in it, if you count, billions of dollars: the construction of a bridge, "Tavrida" ... ", - said the senator.

This is not the first time that demands have been made in Ukraine to receive compensation from Russia.

So, in November 2019, the Ukrainian Minister of Infrastructure Vladislav Krykliy said that Russia, after the end of the conflict in the Donbass, "must pay reparations to Ukraine."

The minister said that only after that Kiev will be engaged in the restoration of the region.

Press Secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov called such a statement unsuccessful, recalling that the Russian side is not a party to this conflict.

"This is an internal Ukrainian conflict, Russia is currently doing everything possible to assist in resolving this problem," Peskov noted then.

  • Reuters

  • © Sergei Karpukhin

Also in 2019, the Ukrainian Seaport Authority (USPA) announced that it was preparing a demand for the Russian government to pay compensation for losses allegedly incurred due to the reunification of Crimea to Russia.

The administration then said that the cost of property assigned to the branches of the USPA could be more than 3 billion rubles.

The State Duma then called this requirement groundless.

In particular, Duma deputy from Sevastopol Dmitry Belik pointed out that there are no grounds for such a claim.

In turn, the head of the Crimean parliamentary committee on interethnic relations, Yuriy Gempel, noted that such actions of the Ukrainian side signal that “Ukraine clearly does not have enough funds for current state expenditures.”

He also added that such claims have no legal basis. 

It should be noted that in 2019, Dmitry Kuleba, who then held the post of Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, said that the country was ready for the European Union to stop extending sanctions against Russia, but in this case, Kiev intends to receive “maximum compensation "From the EU.

Anton Morozov, a member of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, then noted that Ukrainian officials "are constantly standing with an outstretched hand and begging everyone for money, allegedly for the development of Ukraine."