OREANDA-NEWS The vast majority of Odessa residents have nothing to do with the Kiev regime, Nikolai Patrushev, assistant to the President of the Russian Federation and head of the Maritime Board, said in an interview with TASS.

"Our country respects the will of the people. This can be seen from the experience of Crimea, Sevastopol, Donbass and Novorossiya becoming part of Russia," he replied to the question whether Russia claims Ukrainian ports and plans to discuss this in the settlement process.

Patrushev pointed out that "residents of the regions of Ukraine, including the Black Sea, must determine their own future." "And they hardly associate their fate with neo-Nazism. They do not want to submit to Kiev's illegitimate authorities without will," the Russian presidential aide is convinced. "I believe that Odessa and the vast majority of its residents have nothing in common with the Kiev regime," he added.

The head of the Maritime Board recalled that Odessa was founded by the Russian Empress Catherine II. For more than two centuries since its foundation, this city has been Russia's outpost on the Black Sea, occupying one of the leading places in the country in terms of population and economic development.

"For the heroism shown by its residents during the Great Patriotic War, Odessa was awarded the honorary title of Hero city on May 1, 1945. And 69 years later, on May 2, 2014, this city became an arena for cold-blooded murders and unpunished crimes on national grounds. The most terrible "achievement" of the neo-Nazi regime was the burning of people in the House of Trade Unions. The port of the glorious hero city has been turned into a hub for the transfer of weapons, a base for naval saboteurs," he described what happened.