Poroshenko Promises to Return Crimea
Ukrainian authorities are taking legal action for the return of Crimea, but this process will not be fast or easy, declared President Petro Poroshenko in his address on the anniversary of the tragic events on the peninsula.
“The authorities are already carrying out the necessary work for the restoration of property rights through international courts,” he said.
The President expressed his conviction that the civilized development of Crimea and the realization of its potential are possible only within Ukraine. According to him, those who violated human rights in Crimea and carried out crimes against the state will be brought to international and Ukrainian courts.
“Those who are now ‘nationalizing’ property of Ukrainian citizens, enterprises, institutions, and authorities, those who by illegal means are extracting minerals from beneath Ukrainian soil, who in defiance of national and international law use other resources of Ukraine in Crimea, should know that they will have to return everything that was illegally obtained and take responsibility for their actions,” he said.
Poroshenko called the “referendum,” which was held in March of last year, “a farce designed to cover the open aggression of Russia against Ukraine” and attested that Ukraine will never recognize it “even more so because most of the people in Crimea, especially Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians, have expressed an active boycott of this political show, retaining their loyalty to Ukraine.”
The President noted that there are numerous known cases of violations by the Russian occupiers of the rights of Crimean Tatars, ethnic Ukrainians, Russians, and other ethnic groups of Crimea who hold pro-Ukrainian views. On the peninsula, the police act with impunity, and there arrests, searches, and deportations of Mejlis members.
Poroshenko promised to protect the rights of people persecuted by the occupation authorities and assured that Ukraine would re-establish control over Crimea, although this process will not be fast or easy.
