Ukraine rejects “pacifying the aggressor” as a path to peace
On October 24, 2024, Riga, the Third Parliamentary Summit of the Crimea Platform was held in Riga, the capital of Latvia, gathering over 70 delegations, including 36 heads of parliaments, both in-person and online.
The summit participants discussed current challenges related to the occupation of Crimea, human rights violations in the occupied territories, and the international response to Russia’s actions.
On behalf of all Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars, Refat Chubarov, Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People, thanked the summit participants for their steadfast position on the non-recognition of Russia’s claims on Ukrainian territory.
Chubarov urged continued use of the Ukrainian Peace Formula to increase political and diplomatic pressure on dictator Putin and his supporters.
ZMINA publishes the speech of Refat Chubarov, head of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar, at the Third Parliamentary Summit of the Crimea Platform.
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, your excellencies, participants of the Third Parliamentary Summit,
[…] On behalf of all of us, participants of the Third Parliamentary Summit of the International Crimea Platform, I would like to express our deep gratitude to our friends from Latvia. Thank you for your hospitality and the excellent organisation of this event.
Dear friends, today we have heard your strong statements of support representing your parliaments and political forces. We feel your sincere support, and we are grateful to you that you feel the pain of Ukrainians, of Crimean Tatars. You perceive it as your own pain.
Thank you for upholding democratic values and rejecting Russia’s illegal attempts to seize our territory. As mentioned repeatedly, we must strengthen our efforts to repel Russian aggression. While we must pursue multiple paths to peace, it is our unity, commitment, resolve, and military capabilities that will ultimately compel Russia to comply with international law, humanitarian law, and human rights.
Refat ChubarovDear friends, Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars, who returned to their homeland only after years of struggle, desire peace more than anyone. We want to end these atrocities – the killings, torture of civilians, and kidnapping of children in temporarily occupied territories. We want to stop the bloodshed and this cruel war of aggression.
However, we seek a just peace. We are not ready to pay any price for our peace, and we are not ready to trade our land, which is the homeland of Crimean Tatars, which Russia has converted into the springboard for further expansion of its aggression directed at other countries. We do not want to transform our aspiration for peace into the attempt to satisfy and pacify of the aggressor.
We have to be resolute and strong in our endeavours fighting for peace. We thank you, dear friends, for your participation in this Third Parliamentary Summit of the International Crimea Platform, as well as for your participation in the first Peace summit. I encourage you to continue supporting President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Peace Formula to compel the aggressor state to end this war.
Dear friends, traditionally, Parliamentary Summit of the International Crimea Platform concludes with a joint statement. We call upon recognition of Ukraine’s sovereignty and the right of our state to self-defence and liberation of all temporarily occupied territories.
We condemn atrocities committed by Russia in temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine:
- conducting illegitimate “referendum” and elections;
- persecuting journalists, activists;
- illegally detaining civilians;
- torturing and inhumanely treating individuals;
- violating international humanitarian law, particularly regarding Crimea’s indigenous people;
- abducting and forcibly deporting Ukrainian children to Russia and Belarus.
They criminalise the elected body of the Crimean Tatars, Mejlis, and in this way they deprive Crimean Tatars of the possibility to develop our identity, language, and the culture. They continue to actively militarise the Crimean Peninsula and in this way they prohibit the navigation, they create obstacles for navigation which fuels the global food crisis. This is a big issue for food security.
We call upon all the parties involved, all participants of this Third Parliamentary Summit to declare the right of Ukraine to regain its sovereignty, including temporarily occupied territories of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia. This ten-year war has grown increasingly brutal, yet it has crystallized Ukrainian national awareness.
Ukrainian soldiers had proven that the Russian army is not the second-greatest army in the world. This is the army that will be conquered. Russia has committed actions that result in the food, global food crisis, and Russia is blackmailing the entire world, threatening the use of nuclear weapons.
Ronald Reagan, in his speech in 1983 in Florida, called the Soviet Union the country of evil. And following the collapse of former USSR, many of us empire of evil collapsed as well. However, Mr. Putin, as the individual with the background in security forces, did everything possible to make Russia the centre of evil in the present-day world.
We believe it is immoral to shake hands with Mr. Putin, to pat him on his back in this way, allowing him to continue tortures and killings of Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars.
Dear friends, I am the head of Mejlis, the elected representative body of Crimean Tatar people. Today, in this hall, we have members of Mejlis of the Crimean Tatars, Haiana Yuksel, Eskander Bariyev, Gurnara Bekirova, Nariman Dzhelial, and many others.
Three months ago, Mr. Dzhelial was kept in prison in Russia, in Krasnoyarsk. Over 219 Ukrainian citizens, including Crimean Tatars, remain political prisoners in temporarily occupied by Russia territories and in Russia under severe conditions.
My colleagues, we have to defend our own state, the state of Ukraine. We have to defend our people who are in the conditions of the Russian occupation for more than 10 years.
We cannot allow Putin to accomplish what Stalin failed to do in 1944 – destroy Crimea’s indigenous people. We can rely only on the sovereign Ukrainian state and on your nations, on your countries, dear friends.
I call upon your parliaments and governments to take resolute action to achieve victory over Russian evil, restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, and a special tribunal to punish Putin and Russian leadership for war crimes.
This war began with Crimea’s occupation and must end with Crimea’s liberation.
Glory to Ukraine.
This material has been funded by UK International Development from the UK government; however, the views expressed do not necessarily reflect the UK government’s official policies
