YALTA. Aug 17 (Interfax) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has called Russians and Ukrainians a single people and expressed confidence that Ukraine will cope with its problems and get rid of "external management."
"In general I think that Russians and Ukrainians are a single people," he said at a meeting with representatives of ethnic public associations of Crimea.
"I am sure that despite all the difficulties of the current period of time the situation in Ukraine will straighten out, [and that] Ukraine will be developing positively and will depart from the shameful practice that we observe today when an entire enormous European nation is placed under external management with foreign citizens occupying key positions in the government and in the regions," he added.
Putin called the situation humiliating for the Ukrainian people.
"This will undoubtedly be duly assessed by the Ukrainian people and Ukraine will rise to its feet and will develop positively and build its future together with Russia," he said.
Putin added that Ukrainians are the third biggest ethnic group in Russia after Russians and Tatars.
"There are 5 million Tatars living in Russia, 3 million Ukrainians, not counting those who are staying [in Russia] temporarily and are considered citizens of Ukraine. We also have around 3 million of them already and the overwhelming majority of them are men of conscription age," he said.