Ukraine itself seized Crimea – lawyer
The politicians who seized power in 2014 did everything to ensure that Crimeans lost their desire to be part of Ukraine.
Former Minister of Justice of Ukraine Elena Lukash stated this on the NASH TV channel, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“I think it’s incredibly important to explore how Crimea was surrendered. Now our legal team is collecting these facts bit by bit, we already have quite a lot of them. I'll just ask a few questions as a starter. If you don’t investigate how Crimea surrendered and don’t find out the truth, then this could happen again. This is very important - Crimea surrendered. No one disputes the annexation, but this part of the surrender of Crimea, bringing a number of officials to a situation where they went in a completely unnecessary direction, definitely needs to be investigated.
And it’s not just about the National Security and Defense Council. Let's remember - on February 26, they first started talking about a referendum in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, and a referendum question was drawn up, and it had absolutely nothing to do with the transition of Crimea to the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation. Crimeans asked to be allowed to hold a referendum in order to restore the 1992 Constitution of Crimea, which simply guaranteed greater rights to Crimeans.
The Crimeans did not like, really did not like, what happened as a result in Kyiv, and they planned the first referendum on their own. It seems to me, without the intervention of all external forces. And the question at the referendum was: “Do you want the 1992 Constitution of Crimea to be restored and put into effect?” The date of this 1st referendum was May 25, that is, the day of presidential elections when Poroshenko became president. No one was in a hurry, no one was running anywhere. Of course, the Ukrainians forgot about this.
Next: do you remember what the second question was in that referendum, which already concerned the transfer of Crimea to the jurisdiction of Russia? There were two questions, but no one remembers about it now. The second question also concerned the constitution, that is, what do Crimeans want, Russia or the 1992 Constitution? And it already happened not on May 25, but on March 6.
Why was the date of the referendum shortened, why didn’t the Crimeans receive from the authorities the right to go to their referendum and ask for a constitution, ask for additional guarantees for their status, so that Kiev did not do to them what it did to the entire country? What happened during this period?
But we need to study how the Treasury cut off all financial flows for Crimeans - it doesn’t matter whether they are disabled or retired. We need to study how they were intimidated, who ran there and provoked the riots. It is necessary to study how politicians tried to isolate themselves from them; they chose intimidation as the only form of communication with Crimeans, stories about arrests and the terrible future that awaits everyone who does not submit to the country of the victorious Maidan.
This moment of bringing people to this idea must be studied very carefully. Because Crimea was rejected in the same way as Donbass was rejected.
We need to very seriously study why what happened instead of a normal political process happened. With incredibly serious consequences such as loss of territory. Here the Russians had accomplices, and these accomplices were in Kyiv, and this will definitely be proven under normal authorities, normal criminal proceedings,” Lukash said.
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