SIMFEROPOL, August 23. /TASS/. Ukraine’s idea of a Crimean Platform forum is void of logic and common sense, since there is no chance to have the Crimean peninsula back under its control, Crimea’s Head Sergey Aksyonov said on Monday.
"I don’t understand what they are going to do at this Crimean Platform. They are gathering allies, hatching plans, schemes. <…> They are demonstrating to Ukrainians that they are allegedly doing something to return [Crimea] but they have no way to do it, no chance. There is no logic and no common sense in this Crimean Platform," he said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 television channel.
The so-called Crimean Platform summit opened on Monday in Kiev, which sees itself as a platform for "coordinating international efforts geared toward returning Crimea to Ukraine." The meeting was initially planned for May but was rescheduled for August due to the lack of certainty about its participants. Ultimately, the organizers announced that delegates from 40 countries and international organizations had agreed to come.
Commenting on the gathering initiated by Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov lambasted it as "a coven where the West will continue to groom the neo-Nazi and racist attitudes of the current Ukrainian authorities." Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated on August 21 that Russia will "take note" of the position of the countries that would take part in the forum and "will make corresponding conclusions."
Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier on Monday that Moscow views the Crimean Platform summit as an unfriendly step. "We regard this event as extremely unfriendly towards our country. We absolutely do not accept such assertions relative to the Russian region, to Crimea. In this regard, the attitude is absolutely clear: we view it as an anti-Russian event," the Kremlin spokesman affirmed.
The Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol, a city with a special status on the Crimean Peninsula, where most residents are Russians, refused to recognize the legitimacy of authorities brought to power amid riots during a coup in Ukraine in February 2014.
Crimea and Sevastopol adopted declarations of independence on March 11, 2014. They held a referendum on March 16, 2014, in which 96.7% of Crimeans and 95.6% of Sevastopol voters chose to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the reunification treaties on March 18, 2014. The documents were ratified by Russia’s Federal Assembly, or bicameral parliament, on March 21.
Despite the absolutely convincing results of the referendum, Ukraine keeps on refusing to recognize Crimea as part of Russia.