SIMFEROPOL, June 29. /TASS/. The intention to erect a monument to Hetman Ivan Mazepa in Kiev serves to forming of a "cult of betrayal" in Ukrainian society, Mikhail Sheremet, a State Duma deputy from the Republic of Crimea, said in an interview with TASS.
Earlier, Vladimir Zelensky said the monument would be installed in the center of Kiev on Taras Shevchenko Boulevard, where the monument to Vladimir Lenin used to be.
"Zelensky's actions to erect a monument to the traitor Mazepa in Kiev fully fit into his collaborationist logic. Realizing that the decline of Ukrainian neo-Nazism is nearing, he purposefully continues to form a cult of betrayal, apostasy and treason in Ukrainian society to shift the bloody crimes he personally committed onto the shoulders of the remaining citizens of the betrayed country," Sheremet said.
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called Zelensky's plans another "decision by a drug dictator" who again betrayed his ancestors. Zakharova gave examples of how Shevchenko called Mazepa in his works and how the hetman was described in Ukrainian folklore: "the dog Mazepa," "the cursed Mazepa," "the enemy Mazepa," "the famous anathema Ivan Mazepa," "the cursed Ivan Mazepa."
