Comment by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on the meeting of the so-called Crimea Platform in Kiev

We have taken note of an event that was held in Kiev on August 23 and was entitled a “Crimea Platform Summit.” The stated aim of this political project, developed with active involvement of government experts from the United States, the UK and the European Union and funded by the United States Agency for International Development, is “the de-occupation of Crimea and its reintegration with Ukraine.”

The participants involved are just right for this goal – mainly being NATO countries and some international organisations sharing a common delusion that the Crimean Peninsula should be part of the current Ukrainian state and that it can be torn away from the Russian Federation by increasing political and economic pressure on Russia.

In this regard, we would like to point out the following.

• The matter of Crimea’s reunification with the Russian Federation was settled in March 2014. This hard-won decision was made by the local residents themselves in a referendum that followed the unconstitutional coup d’etat in Kiev in February 2014. This way Crimeans could remain true to their history, to their Russian culture, the right to speak their native languages, including Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar, and at the same time avoid the dangers of the punitive operation and civil war, which was later unleashed by the Kiev regime in Donbass, as well as the Nazi-like atrocities that Odessa residents suffered in May 2014.

With this background, Ukraine’s new idea is pure populism, a political show outside of reality with the sole aim of keeping the story of Crimea’s temporary period as a region of Ukraine afloat in the public discourse.

• At the same time, as we have already warned, we will have to view the participation of certain countries, international organisations and their representatives in the Crimea Platform initiative as an encroachment on the Russian Federation’s territorial integrity, which will have an inevitable impact on our relations.

There is also something else. The final declaration of the “summit” calls on the Russian Federation to “engage” in the “Crimea Platform” activities. We do not see any possibility of participating in this political act due to its cynical anti-Russia nature.

At the same time, we are fully open to interaction with all of our international partners in unleashing the unique potential of the Russian Crimea. To do this, we invite our foreign friends to the peninsula to participate in truly Crimean platforms for economic, humanitarian and cultural cooperation.