MOSCOW, July 2. /TASS/: Moscow has no wish to see the Russian flag hoisted in Ukrainian territory, because it respects the country's sovereignty, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the media on Friday.
"No, we have no wish to see our flag hoisted in Ukraine," the Kremlin official said in reply to a corresponding question.
"We do respect Ukraine's sovereignty, but, of course, we cannot react positively to such remarks by President Vladimir Zelensky," Peskov said while speaking about the Ukrainian leader's statement he did not recognize Russians and Ukrainians as one people. Zelensky argued that that if it had been otherwise, most probably the yellow-and-blue Ukrainian flag would have been flying over the State Duma's building on Okhotny Ryad Street.
"I find it hard to even somehow analyze the reasons, why such words were pronounced [by the Ukrainian president]. On the other hand, possibly, they were taken out of the context. I cannot rule this out. Sounds strange," the Kremlin spokesman said.
Peskov said that the phrases "one people" and "fraternal people," which President Vladimir Putin recently used in relation to Russians and Ukrainians and Russians and Belarusians were synonyms. "We are one people but two different states. This is absolutely so. It is a reality that we exist in. True, after the breakup of the Soviet Union we found ourselves in different states," Peskov said. "Naturally, each country is absolutely sovereign, but there is one people".
He stressed that "there can be no end of attempts at rewriting history, the way some are trying to do in Ukraine, but there is one people".
