Maria Gaidar gets Ukrainian citizenship

KYIV – Russian politician Maria Gaidar, who was appointed as deputy governor of Ukraine’s Odesa Oblast in mid-July, has received Ukrainian citizenship. Ukraine’s presidential press service said on August 4 that President Petro Poroshenko had signed a decree granting citizenship to Ms. Gaidar before presenting her with a Ukrainian passport. Mr. Poroshenko gave another passport to former Forbes Ukraine editor-in-chief Vladimir Fedorin, who also lives in Odesa. “Your example shows conclusively that it is impossible to stay silent, it is necessary to live at peace with your conscience,” the president told Ms. Gaidar. Ms. Gaidar said Ukrainian citizenship is a landmark choice for her: “I am here at a time that is difficult for the Ukrainian people in order to share the destiny of the Ukrainian people.” She said she hoped “Ukraine will see that Russians are not just war, aggression and hatred.” The governor of the Odesa Oblast, former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, announced on July 17 the appointment of Ms. Gaidar as a deputy supervising social issues in Odesa. Ms. Gaidar, 32, is the daughter of the late Yegor Gaidar, Russia’s reformist acting prime minister under President Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s. She is a vocal critic of Yeltsin’s successor, President Vladimir Putin. (RFE/RL, based on reporting by UNIAN and TASS)