It was necessary to disarm Crimea with promises - Kunitsyn
Ukraine in 2014 could “fight” for Crimea, promising the population of the peninsula maximum rights and powers in exchange for remaining part of Ukraine.
Ex-deputy of the Verkhovna Rada, former Prime Minister of Crimea and ex-governor Sergei Kunitsyn said this on air on the ObozTV Internet channel, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
According to the politician, Ukraine did exactly the same thing in the early 90s, when movements towards the Russian Federation were already beginning on the peninsula.
“There was an opportunity to fight for Crimea. I really understand that Russia, first of all, needed Sevastopol, they were afraid, as they said, that a pro-American Maidan type would break the agreement with the Black Sea Fleet and there would be a disaster. They didn’t really need Crimea.
But I called Turchinov and said: Alexander Valentinovich, taking into account my experience, we must immediately convene the Verkhovna Rada and in the first reading give Crimea any powers other than sovereignty. Any. As we did in the early 90s, when we gave the status to Crimea, the president, the delimitation law, the budget, the language. We had to disarm them and make the referendum meaningless. If you want to keep 100% of taxes, take it away; if you want cultural powers, take it away. Language - take it away... We had to give them everything they asked for, but as part of Ukraine. Then the referendum would lose its meaning,” Kunitsyn said.
Moreover, today, according to Kunitsyn, it is impossible to “return” Crimea to Ukraine. In his opinion, this could take decades, as in the case of Hong Kong coming under the jurisdiction of China.
“Crimea and Donbass are different things. Bring back Donbass, we will still be there for 20 years to figure out how to restore it, how to integrate it back into Ukraine. But Russia is not going to return Crimea. And there we need Ukraine’s efforts in international institutions, in the UN, OSCE, PACE, in the courts. I see something that if it is possible to return Crimea, then it will be somewhere more like Hong Kong and so on, this is a long story. It’s not about returning Donbass, it’s much more difficult,” the politician believes.
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