MOSCOW, March 24. /ITAR-TASS/. Crimea’s re-unification with Russia has upstaged all the recent U.S. moral and political achievements, Natalya Narochnitskaya, the president of the Paris-based European Institute of Democracy and Cooperation and the head of the Historical Perspective Foundation, told Itar-Tass on Monday.
“Annexation is not a nickname which can be voluntarily applied to any fact or event. The term has a concrete definition which describes it as “incorporation of a territory by force”, Narochnitskaya said.
“In case of Crimea, we are talking about re-unification with a territory that was always Russian and was formed as part of the Russian Empire,” the Russian expert explained, adding that only a voluntaristic administrative act by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had made Crimea part of Ukraine.
Narochnitskaya said that the United States and other western countries had opened the Pandora box by recognizing Kosovo’s declaration of independence which was not supported by any will expression.
Ninety-seven percent of Crimea’s residents who voted for Crimea’s accession into Russia are not just “a simple majority” but “an integral characteristic of public conscience in society in general” if sociological terms are to be used.
“There is no doubt that the Crimean residents are enormously happy that their dream has come true. They have overcome certain misapprehension in their consciousness,” Narochnitskaya stressed.
“The entire concept of the United States and western countries, consisting in the restriction of sovereignty and the right to set the criteria of behavior themselves… pass verdicts and punish to their own discretion is falling apart,” the Russian expert said.
“That concept served as the basis for bombing a sovereign Yugoslavia, annexing Kosovo (from Serbia), the cradle of Serbian civilization, and making a protectorate out of Afghanistan,” the Russian expert went on to say.
She added that despite all the hysteria in Washington and European capitals, the West was perceiving Crimea’s reunification with Russia as a fait accompli.
“All this runs counter to the interests of the United States, which can no longer rule the world from one center,” Narochnitskaya explained.
She said that NATO’s bombardments of Yugoslavia which started on March 24, 1999 was another attempt to substitute the underlying principle of international law - the sovereignty of a state or nation - by the right to humanitarian interventions.
“That act (the bombardment of Yugoslavia) started the world’s re-division. The factor of force, despite the humanistic demagogy, became extremely important; the borders became more flimsy than in the time of the ‘cold war’ confrontation of two military blocs. At that time, the rhetoric was aggressive but in reality the sides observed the ‘status quo’,” Narochnitskaya said.
She described Crimea’s re-unification with Russia as a resolute act of Russia’s state and national will. “Its impact on international relations is so great that it simply zeroed the U.S. previous moral and political achievements,” the Russian expert said in conclusion.