Minister for Veterans Affairs of Ukraine Yulia Laputina believes in the common civic identity of Ukrainians living throughout the country.

"Unfortunately, under the conditions of the occupation of a part of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, a new generation of children is already growing up. They went to the first grade. They did not see anything other than "DPR/LPR" ("Donetsk and Luhansk Peoples' Republics"). The more time passes, it will be more and more difficult to return them mentally. But I still believe in our national identity, I would even say, civic identity. It will manifest itself, 'sprout,'" she said in an exclusive interview with the Interfax-Ukraine agency.

"It's not just that Russia has been carrying out actions to clean up the Ukrainian mentality for a long time. Russia is totalitarian, with a rigid vertical power structure. In Ukraine, on the contrary, there are strong horizontal ties of civil society. Russia does not understand how to work with this," the minister said.

"Even in 2014, in conditions when we had nothing, our country somehow managed to fight back the invader. Thanks to this, we have managed and will continue to be able to liberate our territories and return our people, who, unfortunately, remain hostages to Russia," Laputina said.