The third international conference Crimea Global opened in Kyiv

On Monday, November 17, the third international conference Crimea Global started in Kyiv. The event was attended by more than 200 participants from around the world, including leading experts, scholars, journalists, human rights activists, opinion leaders and representatives of international organizations.

This was reported by the Mission of the President of Ukraine in the AR of Crimea.

According to the Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Iryna Mudra, the occupation of Crimea in 2014 was the first attempt to change European borders since World War II. The aggressor country used manipulative referendums, repression and disinformation against Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians.

First Deputy Foreign Minister Sergiy Kyslytsya called Russia's war against Ukraine a neocolonial one and emphasized that the Kremlin views Ukrainians as a resource for restoring its imaginary empire. He reminded the foreign guests of the closure of Ukrainian schools, environmental disasters, the export of cultural property and systematic human rights violations in the occupied territories.

"For Russia, Crimea is a resource for imperial ambitions, military power in the Black and Mediterranean Seas, and for the seizure of new territories," Kyslytsya said.

Refat Chubarov, Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people, added that along with Ukrainians, Crimean Tatars, Poles, and Romanians - people of different origins and faiths united by a common goal - are defending Ukraine's sovereignty.

According to him, in February 2014, Ukraine failed to prevent the occupation of Crimea, and in 2022 we witnessed a full-scale war.

Now we cannot stop fighting without liberating Crimea and other occupied territories and restoring the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Today, Ukrainians of different nationalities are not submitting to the peninsula. I am confident that we will liberate them and return Crimea," Chubarov emphasized.

Also on November 24, the Fourth Parliamentary Summit of the Crimean Platform will be held in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. Participants plan to inform international partners about the consequences of Russia's occupation and annexation of Crimea, discuss current threats to the region and develop new effective strategies for liberating the peninsula and protecting the rights of citizens in the temporarily occupied territories.

Анна Бальчінос