Greek Ambassador in Ukraine Says Expatriates Are Safe

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Greek ambassador to Ukraine Vasilis Papadopoulos said on Thursday that the strong Greek community there is safe, and so far no incidents have been reported in areas such as Mariupol and Odessa -where some 150,000 Greeks apparently live-.

Speaking on SKAI TV, the Ambassador said that the Greek community feels weary over "the opposition’s dominance”, since they live in areas where the recently-ousted president Victor Yanukovych was popular. He also commented on the abolition of a 2012 law regarding languages used by minorities (including Russian, Romanian and Hungarian) and explained that this only affects the use of Greek in the Ukrainian administration.

Alexandra Protsenko is the president of the Federation of Greek Communities throughout Ukraine, which has approximately 150,000 Greeks living there.  A report on Euronews, left it to be understood that she is extremely concerned about the changes that are taking hold of her country.

She told gr.euronews.com that the Greek community there is united and during the crisis they more or less remained neutral. She also said that there are eleven MPs and six district governors of Greek descent in Ukraine and that there are many villages where Greek is the predominant language. She did however reassure all concerned that the Greek community is in contact with them, because they want to continue having a strong presence in the government regardless of who is in charge.