Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has said that Crimea will be crucial in discussing the terms of peace between Ukraine and Russia, so the approach to the Crimea issue should be special. He said this during a discussion at the 20th annual meeting of YES in Kyiv, reports Komersant ukrainskyi
citing Interfax-Ukraine.
Sikorsky emphasised the symbolic importance of Crimea for Russia, in particular for its President Vladimir Putin, while stressing the strategic importance of the peninsula for Ukraine.
“Crimea is symbolically important for Russia, and especially for (Russian President) Putin, but it is strategically important for Ukraine. So I don’t see how they can reach an agreement without demilitarising Crimea,” he said,
– he said.
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The minister said that a solution is possible if Ukraine and Russia are ready for it. He suggested that Crimea could be placed under a UN mandate to hold a fair referendum after identifying its rightful residents:
“We could put it under a UN mandate with a mission to prepare a fair referendum after verifying who the legal residents are and so on… And we could postpone it for 20 years.”
Sikorsky also criticised Western countries, in particular the United States, for advising Ukraine not to put up armed resistance in Crimea during its annexation. According to him, if Ukrainians had fought for Crimea, even symbolically, it could have stopped Putin from further actions in Donbas.
“If Ukrainians had fought in Crimea, even symbolically, he [Putin] might not have decided to go to Donbas,”
– sikorsky believes.