Ukraine (Washington Insider Magazine) -The inaugural Crimea Platform Summit was hosted by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Aug. 23 to highlight the plight of Crimea. The Ukrainian president discussed possibilities of returning the peninsula to Ukraine with allies by pressuring Russia to return to the negotiation table.
Crimea has been occupied by Russia since 2014 following an illegal referendum held under the shadow of armed military personal and tanks from Russia. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov decried the summit as an “anti-Russian event.”
For centuries many different ethnic groups have called Crimea home including Crimean Tartars who were displaced by Soviet leader Josef Stalin in 1944 and only returned after Ukrainian independence in 1991. The Tartar issue was also one of the main talking points at the summit. Tatars, which make up as much as 15% of the peninsula, opposed the 2014 referendum and have since been pressured and persecuted by Russian authorities.
Fighting in eastern Ukraine between pro-Russian forces and the Ukrainian military has claimed an estimated 14,000 lives and internally displaced around 1.5 million people since hostilities began in 2014.
The inaugural summit drew leaders from 46 countries including all 30 NATO countries and European Council President Charles Michel. Two of the EU’s most important leaders were missing – German Chancellor Angela Merkel who had visited Kyiv on Sunday and French President Emmanuel Macron.
Macron said that the summit was largely a futile attempt at sending a message to Russia and attending the summit would simply antagonize Russian President Vladimir Putin, Politico reported.
President Biden had announced on Aug.20 that Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm would lead the U.S. delegation at the summit. Germany and the United States have vowed to work with Ukraine and Russia in negotiating an extension to a 2019 energy-transit deal worth $7 billion dollars. The deal is set to expire in 2024. This comes following the U.S.-German agreement to lift U.S. sanctions relating to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in July.
Zelenskyy said that he would do “everything possible” to regain control of Crimea, so that “Ukraine becomes a part of Europe,” as reported by Euronews. He further argued at the beginning of the summit that the region had become a “territory where most basic human rights and freedoms of humans are regularly violated.”
President Michel addressed the summit to present the EU’s stance.
“I am here to reaffirm the EU’s unwavering stance: that we do not and will not recognize the illegal annexation of Crimea and Sevastopol by Russia,” said Michel.
He added that “we will continue to staunchly enforce our non-recognition policy and we will stand tall against any violations of international law,” Euronews reported. The EU and Ukraine’s allies have imposed sanctions on Russia in 2014 for its role in eastern Ukraine and annexation of Crimea.
