Considered A Political Provocation, Ukraine's New National Team Jersey Makes Russia Upset

New Jersey for Ukraine national team (Facebook: Andrii Pavelko)

JAKARTA - The new jersey for the Ukraine national team has sparked outrage in Russia because it features a silhouette of a map of Ukraine that includes Crimea.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and Moscow considers the area of the peninsula to be part of Russia, despite the international public recognizing it as part of Ukraine.

The new Ukraine jersey was introduced on Sunday, less than a week before the main draw of Euro 2020, in a post on the Facebook page of the head of the Ukrainian Football Association (UAF), Andriy Pavelko.

The yellow Ukraine home jersey has a sublimated map of Ukraine accented with the slogan "Glory to Ukraine!" on the back while on the inside pinned the slogan "Glory to the heroes!"

Both slogans are often used as the official greeting of the Ukrainian army.

Russia's deputy parliamentarian Dmitry Svischev told the RIA news agency that the jersey design was a "political provocation" and called the embedding of a map of Ukraine "which includes Russian territory is illegal".

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova took to social media to call the slogan nationalist and even compared the two slogans to German Nazi chants.

The annexation of Crimea soured relations between Moscow and Kyiv and spawned a Russian-backed separatist group in eastern Ukraine in 2014, Antara reported, according to Reuters.

Ukraine will play their opening match in Group C Euro 2020 against the Netherlands on Sunday, 13 June against Netherlands at the Johan Cruijff Arena Stadium, Amsterdam.

Meanwhile, Russia is in Group B and will host Belgium the day before at the Krestovsky Stadium, Saint Petersburg.