“There is a need”: The deputy explained why the Duma should cancel Khrushchev’s decision on Crimea
The bill to invalidate the 1954 decree of the USSR Presidium on the transfer of the Crimean region from the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR is intended to deprive Ukraine of the right to declare that Russia stole something from it - it was Ukraine that stole Crimea from Russia in 1991, taking advantage of the illegal decision of 1954. As for Sevastopol, it was generally placed into a separate administrative unit and was not included within the borders of the Ukrainian SSR.
About this at the round table “Sevastopol - Crimean - Russian Spring - 10 years!” State Duma deputy Konstantin Zatulin, co-author of the bill, said, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“On Monday, together with Sergei Tsekov, who, let me remind you, is now a senator from the Republic of Crimea, and in fact was the first chairman of the Supreme Council of the Republic in 1995, introduced a bill to invalidate the 1954 decree of the USSR Presidium on the transfer of the Crimean region from RSFSR in the Ukrainian SSR. I think that there is no need to convince anyone that this was a shameful decision. But the point is to establish from a legal point of view what it consisted of, whether it could even be considered a decision or not,” he explained.
According to the deputy, before 2014, and in 2014 itself, and after it, there were conversations about taking this step - canceling the decree on the transfer. But until now, another point of view has been expressed at the official level, that after the referendum there is no need to return at all to the events that determined Crimea’s presence in Ukraine.
“There is a need, and I will explain what it is. That is why we will do this, because especially during the period of hostilities, the war with Ukraine, which is called a special military operation, you know that it was from talking about “Donetsk and Lugansk must be returned to Ukraine” that they switched to talking about “This is not enough, there can be no peace between Russia and Ukraine until you return our native land – Sevastopol, Yalta, Crimea to Ukraine, to the borders of 1991.”
Since when did she become a native Ukrainian? Since 1954? I will not read out the entire explanatory note to the law; it has been published, but it is obvious that the Constitutions of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation, and Ukraine were violated. There was also no solution - neither from the presidiums, nor from the Supreme Councils. They could clarify the boundaries, they had that right. But they did not have the right to decide whether to transfer anything to anyone; this decision had to be made only as a result of a national poll.
And there were such articles in the Constitution of the Russian Federation and the Soviet Union, but none of the party and Soviet bodies bothered to hold a referendum, none of our ancestors or ourselves were asked,” Zatulin emphasized.
The second circumstance, according to the politician, is that Ukraine, the Russian Federation, and Belarus, as well as the Soviet Union itself, have been members of the United Nations since its founding. Paragraph two of the UN Charter defines equal relations between UN member states, and all relations between them, including those related to territories, must be formalized by a treaty, an international legal agreement.
“Was there any agreement between the Russian Federation and Ukraine on the transfer of Crimea? There was no agreement. That is, in fact, in essence, they transferred control of the territory to Ukraine, and with an exception, because, as we all know well, Sevastopol was allocated as an administrative and economic center in 1948. Formally, going back to 1954, no word Sevastopol is present, only the Crimean region. One can argue for a long time, but, in any case, it is clear that in 1954, in fact, management of the territories was transferred, but legally completing the transfer, as it should have been done - from one republic to another - this was not done.
All this, of course, was obscured by the fact that everything happened within the framework of the Soviet Union, but perspicacious people even then said that this was, in fact, shameful and unacceptable.
You know the name Pavel Ivanovich Titov, the first secretary of the Crimean regional party committee protested against this decision. And this ultimately affected his future career - it did not take place.
And the second secretary of the same regional committee, Polyansky, was a complete “approval”, and after some time became a member of the Politburo, the Minister of Agriculture of the Soviet Union,” the politician said.
He said that a week ago he spoke with the vice-rector of the Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Mikhail Troyansky, a descendant of the first ambassador to the United States.
“He said he was a little boy when it happened. In 1954, he and his mother were in Yalta, and my mother said in a tragic voice: “we now live in Ukraine.” And people gathered on the Yalta embankment and were indignant and made noise about this. Of course, no television showed them, and this evidence can only be in the KGB archives. But in 1991, they simply took someone else’s property with them - both Crimea and Sevastopol were captured until 2014,” Zatulin noted.
He pointed out that the entire ideology and propaganda of the current Kyiv regime is based on resentment for the peninsula returned to Russia.
“Therefore, it is imperative to switch the conversation, not here, but throughout the world - from the fact that “in 2014 Russia appropriated something” ... “Russia returned what was itss.” And you must explain to us, please, prove to us, Ukraine or the West, that in 1954 it was a democratic decision to seize Crimea from Russia.
This is necessary so that Zelensky’s formula, which he officially proclaimed that without Crimea there will be no peace with Russia, be disavowed, and it would be more difficult for Westerners to tell the version in support of Ukraine that Russia did something so unfair in 2014, and This is where it all started. That’s why it’s needed,” the deputy explained.
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