The official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Maria Zakharova said that the Ambassador of Ukraine to Germany, who declared the FRG's moral responsibility for the return of Crimea, did not fully develop his idea.

“Since the Ukrainian ambassador called for Berlin's“ moral responsibility ”, he should not have left his thought, as always, underdeveloped.

He should have reminded his German friends that Nazi Germany occupied Crimea, which was part of Russia / RSFSR, and if anyone owes it, then Moscow, not Kiev, ”she wrote on Facebook.

According to her, if we talk about the modern moral responsibility of Berlin to Kiev, then “it would be better to attribute it to support of the anti-constitutional coup in Ukraine, failure of the Ukrainian leadership to fulfill its obligations under the Minsk agreements, violation of freedom of speech and infringement of the rights of indigenous peoples”.

Earlier, the Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk, wrote an article for the Berliner Zeitung newspaper, in which he stated that Germany has a "moral duty" to Ukraine because of the events of World War II and the Nazi occupation, so Berlin should be more actively involved in resolving the issue of Crimea's ownership.

“Germany's moral duty to put an end to the illegal occupation of Crimea also stems mainly from the fact that it bears to Ukraine indefinite historical responsibility for the Nazi tyranny, which killed more than eight million Ukrainians in the war.

In these events of colonialism, bearing a great historical load, Crimea played a particularly tragic role.

However, the public in Germany hardly knows about it, ”Melnik wrote.

He also said that Crimea has been under German occupation twice in the last century.

The first time this happened during Operation Faustschlag, when German and Austro-Hungarian armies occupied the western territories of the Russian Empire, including Crimea and the territory of the proclaimed Ukrainian People's Republic.

The Germans occupied Crimea for the second time during the Second World War, Melnik recalled.

“The German invaders carried out a ruthless campaign to exterminate the local population, during which hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed, including 38 thousand Crimean Jews.

Although Goth's plan has long been forgotten in modern Germany, Nazi tyranny left an extremely bloody trail in Crimea.

These forgotten atrocities have not yet been fully considered, ”the Ukrainian diplomat said.

That is why Germany and its allies must use political and economic instruments to force Russia to abandon Crimea, Melnik emphasizes.

“Crimea is a test that will show whether the Germans are really ready to take on more responsibility on the world stage in the struggle for international law,” the Ukrainian ambassador said.

"Crimean platform"

The administration of Volodymyr Zelenskiy has recently intensified its attempts to involve different countries in the process of reconsidering the ownership of Crimea.

So, in September 2020, Zelensky announced that he intends to discuss the creation of a negotiating platform on the issue of Crimea at the Ukraine-EU summit, which was held in October 2020 in Brussels.

He reported this to the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, who was then on a visit to Ukraine.

“For us, the key issue is to create a permanent platform on which humanitarian issues, human rights issues, the issue of Ukrainians on the territory of the temporarily occupied Crimea, in general, the issue of returning our occupied territory is raised,” Zelensky said.

There were no official statements from the EU leadership on this issue after the summit, but soon officials in the presidential administration and Zelensky himself began to discuss the creation of a kind of "Crimean platform".

Kiev had already put forward a similar idea before this summer of 2019.

In October 2020, in his annual message to the Verkhovna Rada, the President of Ukraine announced that a number of countries are ready to join the platform.

“I have already substantively discussed this initiative with representatives of the EU, Great Britain, Canada, Turkey and other partners.

Many of them are ready to join and take an active part in it, ”Zelensky said at the time.

In December, the President of Ukraine called on representatives of the country's diplomatic corps to work more actively to attract foreign states to participate in the "Crimean Platform", recalling that "this initiative has already been supported by our partners in Europe and North America."

  • Vladimir Zelensky

  • Reuters

  • © Sergey Dolzhenko

Despite the fact that the creation of the "Crimean Platform" was supported by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and a number of MEPs, at the moment neither the State Department nor the EU legislative body announced their readiness to take direct part in its work.

German officials did not make such statements either.

Absurd logic

Recall that the Crimea peninsula was transferred to Ukraine in 1954, and after the collapse of the USSR it remained in its composition.

Against the background of the events of 2014 in Ukraine, when a change of power took place as a result of a coup d'état, the residents of Crimea expressed a desire to reunite with the Russian Federation.

In March 2014, a referendum was held on the peninsula, during which more than 90% of residents voted to join Russia.

The United States and Western European countries call the incident an annexation; after the referendum, they imposed sanctions on hundreds of companies and politicians from Russia.

In Kiev, the peninsula is called "temporarily occupied Ukrainian territory."

Moscow has repeatedly pointed out that the transfer of Crimea to the Russian Federation was carried out in full compliance with international law and the UN Charter, and top Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, stated that the issue of Crimea’s territorial affiliation was “finally closed”.

  • Yalta embankment

  • RIA News

  • © Konstantin Mikhalchevsky

In March this year, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said that Kiev is working on the "return" of Crimea in three areas, one of which is "consolidation" - "joining the efforts of all partners on the" Crimean platform ".

Commenting on this statement, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova stressed that Kiev's efforts to return Crimea are illegitimate and cannot be perceived otherwise than as a threat of aggression against the constituent entities of the Russian Federation.

“No“ strategies ”to work on the sly against Crimean residents, including sanctions and a water blockade, are able to restore their confidence,” Zakharova stressed.

The Russian diplomat added that no talk of alleged violation of international norms will abolish the legal right of Crimeans to self-determination.

“We remind you once again that we will consider the participation of any countries and organizations in such actions, including the Crimean Platform initiative, as a step unfriendly towards Russia, as a direct encroachment on its territorial integrity,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

In a commentary on RT, the deputy director of the Institute of CIS Countries, Vladimir Zharikhin, noted that if you follow the logic of the Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, then Germany has a "moral duty" to Russia because of the events of World War II than to Ukraine.

According to him, by making such statements, the Ukrainian ambassador is trying to force Berlin to join the pressure on Russia on the issue of Crimea's ownership.

“This illogical statement was made not by chance, but as part of the campaign around Crimea.

Now Ukraine is going to focus on the anti-Russian direction precisely on the situation with Crimea, for which a conference of the "Crimean Platform" is being started in August and the Ukrainian ambassador reminds Germany of some "debts", the expert noted.

Volodymyr Zharikhin noted that Ukrainian politicians, making such statements, breed contradictions over the question of what role Ukraine played in the war.

“To get rid of these contradictions, Ukraine needs to decide who it is heir to - if Shukhevych and Bandera, then she fought World War II on the side of Germany, so Berlin has no debts to the Ukrainians.

But if she fought against Germany, then Shukhevych and Bandera are state criminals whom she should present in this light, ”the political scientist emphasized.

A similar opinion is shared by Vladimir Shapovalov, deputy director of the Institute of History and Politics at Moscow State Pedagogical University.

“This is an absurd statement for a country that calls stadiums after the Nazi criminal Shukhevych and commits repressions against people wearing St. George ribbons, as well as destroys monuments to Soviet soldiers-liberators, removes Soviet toponymy and replaces it with the names of collaborators,” the expert noted.

Volodymyr Shapovalov also noted that Ukraine needs to decide on its own interpretations of the Great Patriotic War and the interpretation of its common historical past with Russia.

“Either she identifies herself with the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition, or with Nazi criminals.

At the moment there is a feeling that the current Ukrainian political elite associates itself more with collaborators.

If this is so, then there can be no talk of any occupation, since Shukhevych and Bandera, together with the Nazis, entered the Soviet Ukrainian territory, carried out punitive actions against Ukrainians, Russians, Jews, ”the political scientist recalled.

Ukraine will not be able to force Germany to join the work of the "Crimean Platform" or another initiative of Kiev to reconsider the ownership of Crimea by such statements, Vladimir Shapovalov said.

“In Berlin, this insane statement will be perceived negatively, because it is nothing more than an attempt at blackmail.

In addition, today's Germany is sensitive to such demands.

Now Ukraine is following in the footsteps of Poland, which demanded new reparations from Berlin, and the result may be the same - relations may be damaged, ”the expert concluded.