There is no alternative but Zelenskyy’s Peace Plan – Sybiha

The Global Peace Summit in Switzerland clearly manifested and sealed the position that there is no alternative to the Ukraine’s Peace Formula

First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Andrii Sybiha shared this statement on the Crimean Stage of the “Bağçasaray” during the ethnofestival “Krayina Mriy”, a ZMINA correspondent reports.

Andrii Sybiha and Tamila Tasheva

He said that out of more than 90 countries represented at the Global Peace Summit in Switzerland, 56 delegations were represented at the level of heads of state and government. The First Deputy Minister called the summit an extremely serious step forward in achieving a comprehensive, lasting, and just peace for Ukraine. 

In his opinion, the summit clearly manifested and sealed the position that there is no alternative to the Ukraine’s Peace Formula.

“This was a summit of like-minded countries that respect the principle of territorial integrity and sovereignty, that share the fundamental principles of the UN Charter, which is the road that we have chosen… This is the formula Ukraine understands the way of achieving peace for Ukraine. The world and the overwhelming majority of countries in the world support this”, he said. 

At the same time, he reminded that this formula for peace stipulates that there can be no alternatives to the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty within the internationally recognised borders as of 1991, including the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

In his opinion, many countries, including influential ones, are now increasingly aware that the weak response to the events of 2014 provoked further escalation of Russian aggression.

“Therefore, there can be no compromises, no Yalta-2, no Minsk-3, no policy of appeasement. The world has already gone through this, it only leads to further bloodshed. Unpunished evil always returns”, he explained. 

Sybiha said that further thematic events will be held at various levels and venues.

“As you know, in each point of the peace formula there is a distribution of roles, there are leading countries and co-leading countries. In the future, these events will focus on specific topics and issues”, he said.

Martin Harris, British Ambassador to Ukraine, said during the discussion that the UK supports Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Peace Plan because it is based on the core principles of the UN Charter, such as the territorial integrity and sovereignty of independent states.

Tamila Tasheva and Martin Harris

“The UK’s position is that Crimea is Ukraine. And in saying that, it means that we are defending the core principles of the UN Charter, which are the basic principles of security for the whole world. The liberation of Crimea means reinforcing and strengthening the principles of the UN Charter for the security of Europe, the UK and the security of the world. It cannot be just words, it must be a plan for the liberation of Crimea”, he said. He also stressed that the de-occupation of the Crimean peninsula is important not only for Crimeans, but also for the people of the UK.

The British ambassador said that he had been in Crimea 22 years ago with his family and shared his memories of the British frigate, the warship HMS Exeter, docking in Sevastopol.

“I was there on board, it was a very enjoyable evening for our guests and I look forward to the next visit of the British frigate to the Ukrainian fleet in Sevastopol”, said Martin Harris.

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The Mission of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea believes that despite the success of the Global Peace Summit in Switzerland, the Crimean Platform summits should be continued.

Andrii Sybiha added that with each Crimean Platform summit, the number of platform members grows and impactful documents are adopted.  

Tamila Tasheva, the representative of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, said that people in Crimea expect liberation of the peninsula.

“They want to live in a free Ukrainian state where you can say what you think. The expectation of our people is to live in a Ukrainian state as part of the European community of nations, and in the future as a NATO member. Therefore, it is very important that we work with these expectations of people and say that we have a vision of the future of the liberated Crimea”, Tamila Tasheva said.

She assured that Ukraine would never stop working on the liberation of Crimea. 

“We understand that this may not happen tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. But we need to have absolutely all our strategic documents and legislation ready so that after we regain physical control of the peninsula, we have a clear plan that we will physically implement”, she added.

Tasheva pointed out that Crimean residents expect clear answers to their questions, and there are many of them.

Andrii Sybiha and Tamila Tasheva

“People are afraid of the unknown. That is why we are working on reintegration processes to clarify many questions. The Mission, which works within a clear vertical of the President of Ukraine, has received direct instructions from the President of Ukraine that we must be ready to liberate the territory of Crimea”, Tamila Tasheva said.

For this purpose, at the initiative of the Mission, work has begun first on a general, large, strategic document, which will later be used to approve clear steps on what certain areas of public administration will be.

“For example, what will the public authorities in Crimea look like immediately after de-occupation, which have not performed their functions and are not performing them now. It is clear that this is initially a model of military administrations that will work after the liberation of the territory. What are we going to do with the fact that people have millions of different “documents” issued by the occupation administrations? I will repeat the thesis that life does not stop during the occupation. People continue to live, create families, give birth to children, and other processes take place there, which were followed by many “documents” during the occupation”, Tamila Tasheva commented.

See also: Without legislation on verification of “documents” issued during the occupation, our citizens will be afraid of de-occupation

She believes that it would be a mistake to ignore these “documents”, as Ukrainian citizens are concerned about this issue. 

“People are worried about what will happen to them: whether a person with a disability will receive their payments from the state, whether a pensioner will receive their pension after we regain control of the peninsula. What will happen to people who simply lived under occupation, did not commit any crimes, did not even communicate with the occupation administrations, but received an occupation “document”. Or what will happen to those people who cooperated with the occupation administrations but did not commit crimes. This is a huge amount of questions that are related to people’s daily lives”, Tamila Tasheva explained.

The Mission said that all stakeholders are trying to work with these expectations of people in Crimea, with the huge demand for justice that Ukrainian society and the military men and women who are fighting on the frontline, including for the liberation of Crimea, have.

Tamila Tasheva also drew attention to the expectations of one of the most subjective indigenous peoples of Ukraine – the Crimean Tatars, who have their own vision for the liberated Crimea, who want additional rights and protection of these rights, and restoration of the rights that were violated by the Russian Empire and the USSR. 

“Many issues arise in expert groups and we discuss them. And it’s good that in Ukrainian society this is possible when representatives of the public sector, the expert community, and our international partners jointly advise us on something. But the key thing is that we must be ready to liberate the territory, because we really have no alternative that Crimea will not be liberated”, Tamila Tasheva summed up.

A serviceman from Crimea, former deputy commander of the Pryluky missile boat Artem Kyselov, answering the question about Crimeans in the Armed Forces, said that almost all of his friends who left the temporarily occupied peninsula serve in the army. Many of them died for Ukraine.

He stressed that we should not forget the first victims of Russia’s war against Ukraine, who were killed by the occupiers in Crimea in 2014 – Kokurin Serhii Viktorovych and Karachevskyi Stanislav Volodymyrovych. He recalled that the Russian military killed both Ukrainian servicemen after they had been disarmed. 

The Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people, Refat Chubarov, called on the Ukrainian people not to succumb to pressure from Russia and some other countries and not to give up their territory.

Martin Harris and Refat Chubarov

He believes that this means a sacrifice of economic and military security and, ultimately, the impossibility of the development of the Ukrainian state.

As a reminder, the International Forum of the Crimean Platform Expert Network will be held in Kyiv on June 24-25.