Crimea could have been saved for Ukraine if a law on the division of powers between Simferopol and Kiev (which actually meant a confederal structure) was adopted.
This unexpected statement was made by the ex-President of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk on Radio Liberty.
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“I don’t want to say that our government – both current and past – did everything right. If we had implemented one law on the delimitation of powers in Crimea, which I proposed to the Supreme Council, and both the Ukrainian central government and the Crimean leaders would have implemented this law, the situation could have been different. Crimea would be given the opportunity to live more independently using its internal capabilities. If we had gone further and given this to Donetsk, Lugansk and other regions not only in the east, but also in the west, the situation could have been different...
I do not regret that the autonomy of Crimea was restored then, because if this had not happened, the conflict could have already started. And I don’t know how this conflict would have ended at a time when Ukraine was just getting back on its feet,” Kravchuk said.