Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s Crimea Platform continues to function more as a source of tension than a vehicle for conflict resolution. Picture: Roman Pilipey/AFP
CRIMEA Platform, the diplomatic summit initiated by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in 2021, continues to function more as a source of tension than a vehicle for conflict resolution.
The biggest issue is the foundational basis of the Crimea Platform. It seeks to address Ukraine’s historical territorial architecture in a wrongful manner.
The Zelensky administration blames Russia for Crimea’s breakaway from Ukraine in 2014.
As a result, even the wording of the dispute contained in the Crimea Platform is incorrect. For example, the Crimea Platform describes Russia as an “occupying force” in Crimea.
But let’s take a closer look at the facts objectively.
I hope that this will create a proper context for the discourse over the disputed peninsula of Crimea.
The year was 2014. Ukraine was engulfed in a sudden wave of violent protests publicly supported by the West as the protagonists behind the protests wanted Ukraine to align itself with the EU.
The Western media popularised the violent protests with sectarian coverage, describing the riots as “popular uprising”. Other descriptions included “Revolution of Dignity” and “Maidan Revolution”.
In the Western-supported melee – endorsed by the US and some in Europe – the democratically elected president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, was ousted in a subsequent coup.
President Yanukovych was accused of being pro-Russian.
The coup was primarily led by Far Right shock troops such as the “Right Sector” and the neo-Nazi Svoboda Party.
Some 108 protesters died in the ensuing chaos. They included 13 members of the Berkut special riot police who were killed while trying to quell the riots. Scores of others were injured.
A new government, wholly pro-West and anti-Russian, was installed. At its helm was the new President Petro Poroshenko, a businessman who had served as foreign affairs minister between 2009 and 2010.
The West had been gunning for regime-change in Ukraine and the widening of schism with Russia. It yearned for a new puppet regime it could use as a next-door military base to keep a closer watch over Russia in return for economic stimulus and diplomatic cover for Kiev.
Incensed by all the sudden changes and growing domestic divisions, Sevastopol and the “Autonomous Republic of Crimea” – mainly Russian-speaking – conducted a referendum over whether to secede or remain as part of the “new Ukraine”. Better-known as the “Crimean Status Referendum of 2014”, it was held in March that year, a mere month after the February coup.
The results of the referendum were a resounding endorsement to cut ties.
In Crimea, with a voter turnout of 84%, 97% of the people voted to be reintegrated into Russia. Also in Sevastopol, where the turnout was 89%, 97% of the people voted for integration with Russia.
The response from Kiev was a hostile barrage of military attacks on the eastern peninsula. Many people lost their lives between 2014 and 2020. The Zelensky administration banned the Russian language from schools and public platforms and sought to erase any trace of Russian culture or way of life.
Even the church was not spared.
Perceived to be pro-Russian, Kiev has enacted a law outlawing the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and other religious groups regarded as a “tool for Russian soft power”.
The Crimea Platform is, frankly, the wrong way to go about attempting to resolve differences with Russia. Moscow’s argument is that Crimean people alone voted in a democratic process to decide on their destiny.
Russia’s interest has been based on the Russian-speaking people whose democratically elected president, Yanukovych, was ousted in a February 2014 coup.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly argued that if the people of Crimea had not voted unanimously to reintegrate into Russia, the Kremlin would not have had much interest.
However, the fact is, Crimean people have become part of the Russian Federation. This has come at a great cost to them. Sporadic Ukrainian military attacks on Crimea had become a regular feature of life for men, women and children across the peninsula.
Some 46 countries, led by the “usual suspects”, had attended the gathering known as the Crimea Platform, which seeks to reverse the outcome of the 2014 referendum.
In a recent video message to the fourth summit of the Crimea Platform, President of the European Council Charles Michel said: “Dear Ukrainians, the EU is your home. That is why we are determined to support you for as long as it takes, with military, financial and political support. We will continue to rally the international community to isolate Russia and to show the world the Kremlin’s behaviour is extremely dangerous for all of us.”
This confirms the blatant fact that the West is involved in a proxy war with Russia.
At no stage will one hear any voice from the leadership of the West appeal for peace, or dialogue.
It is all about brinkmanship, gung-ho diplomacy. Yet, most of the international community has been sending a simple message: “Give peace a chance.”
The Global South has refused to be dragged into the West’s proxy war with Russia.
In 2023, at the height of the ensuing Ukraine conflict, nearly 50 African heads of state or their delegations attended the Russia-Africa Summit in St Petersburg. This was a sign that Africa had awoken to its sense of independence of thought and no longer feared reprisal from the Western colonial masters of the past.
Determining people’s destiny depends on the people themselves – “nothing about us, without us”.
This applies to the people of the autonomous Crimea peninsula. No one, no matter how powerful, should force their will on the Crimean people. They alone must be allowed to determine their destiny.
Sponsored talk-shops, seminars and conferences of the Crimea Platform or any other will achieve nothing through coercion instead of persuasion.
As things stand, the barrage of Western sanctions against Russia has failed dismally. Russian oil reaches Europe via India. After all, Russian oil and gas are much cheaper than importing it from far-flung places such as the US.
Russia’s economy has grown exponentially since the Western sanctions.
Moscow, whose bilateral relations with Beijing are described by Chinese President Xi Jinxing as “limitless”, is building a gas pipeline straight to China, the world’s second biggest economy.
The foolishness to thwart any chances of talking peace with Russia affects the entire international community. We live in a world that is interconnected and interdependent through a ferocious force known as globalisation.
The world needs peace, not warmongering. Investment of time and capital in the Crimea Platform is a waste of resources, as the platform won’t achieve its impossible mission. At best, the Crimea Platform is a public relations gimmick.
Africa has attempted to put on the table a seven-point plan towards peace in Ukraine. China put on the table its own 10-point plan. Instead of debating the plans, the West has walked away arrogantly, pledging instead to increase funding for Ukraine’s war machinery “for as long as it takes”.
This is an indictment on today’s global leadership that does not wish to give peace a chance. Maybe, just maybe, US presidential candidate Donald Trump will be a much-needed breadth of fresh air after the November 6 elections in the US. The world needs, and deserves peace.
* Abbey Make is the founder and editor-in-chief of Global South Media Network. The views expressed here are his own.
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