MOSCOW, August 10. /TASS/. Claims by Kiev that Russia should pay reparations for its reunification with Crimea and that it should return the peninsula to Ukraine are being raised on the eve of the Crimean Platform and have no prospects, First Deputy Chairman of the Russian Federation Council Committee on Foreign Affairs Vladimir Dzhabarov told TASS on Tuesday.

Earlier, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Reintegration of Uncontrolled Territories Alexei Reznikov stated in an interview that Russia would pay Ukraine reparations for reuniting with Crimea.

"Any reparations are out of the question. Then we can ask for the reparations for the fact that at the time they acquired Malorossiya, Novorossiya that had never been [part of] Ukraine and belonged to the Russian Empire. They were handed over to Ukraine by the Bolshevik government in order for this union republic to be larger, so it would have more proletarians," the senator said.

He added that at the time, Crimea didn’t simply join Ukraine but was handed over with all its land and property "which was built at the time by the Soviet Union, above all, Russia."

"I understand that all this talk emerges in light of the approaching Crimean Platform. Well, then this agency [on Reintegration of Uncontrolled Territories] needs to demonstrate that they are earning their keep, they need to show some activity. Although I am sure that each one of them realizes that work on returning Crimea is absolutely futile, because Crimea is the subject entity of the Russian Federation and it will never return to Ukraine where it ended up because of Khrushchev’s willful error," he noted.

The senator said that Kiev’s attempts to return Crimea are "time and effort spent in vain" and expressed hope that sooner or later the Ukrainian authorities would realize this and would "leave Crimea alone."

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky announced the creation of the Crimean Platform to coordinate efforts on the international level to reinstate Ukrainian jurisdiction on the peninsula. The venue should open with a so-called inauguration summit scheduled for August 23, 2021. It is planned that it will function on several levels: heads of state and government, foreign ministers, lawmakers, a network of experts. Earlier, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry promised to name the participants closer to the event. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba previously said that 32 countries had already confirmed their participation and Kiev hopes that a joint declaration will be approved as a result of the forum.

After the coup d’etat in Ukraine in February 2014, Crimea and Sevastopol held a referendum, in which 96.7% of Crimeans and 95.6% of Sevastopol voters chose to secede from Ukraine and join Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the reunification deal on March 18, 2014, which the Federation Council (upper house of the Russian parliament) ratified on March 21, 2014. Despite the convincing results of the referendum, Kiev has refused to recognize Crimea as part of Russia.