President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy took part in the Sixth Summit of the International Crimea Platform, held in New York during the 81st session of the UN General Assembly. This was the second consecutive Crimea Platform summit to take place on this global platform.
The event brought together representatives of more than 60 countries. They included the presidents of Austria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Czechia, and Montenegro; the prime ministers of Andorra, Malta, Norway, Slovenia, and Croatia; the First Deputy Prime Minister of North Macedonia; the deputy prime ministers of Georgia, Italy, and Moldova; the Hereditary Prince of Liechtenstein; the Grand Chancellor of the Sovereign Order of Malta; the President of the European Parliament; the Secretary General of the Council of Europe; government officials from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, Canada, Costa Rica, the Netherlands, and Sweden; and representatives of Poland and Japan.
The number of participants continues to grow. This year, Panama and Trinidad and Tobago took part in the Crimea Platform summit for the first time.
“This is not just yet another format. And it is not just an annual meeting. It’s a constant confirmation that you truly respect the basic principles of normal life, of normal human life. Today, it almost sounds strange even to say the words “international law”. And almost no one in the world believes in international law anymore. But we still do not want these words to lose their meaning completely,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his address to the participants.
The Head of State said Russia must be held accountable for its war of aggression and for seizing other countries’ territories.
The President stressed that Crimea, temporarily occupied since 2014, remains at the center of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and of all the crises caused by the fighting in the Black Sea, including issues involving the transportation of agricultural products, fertilizers, oil, and diesel fuel. There can be no full return to normal life without Crimea, without restoring security, protecting people, releasing prisoners held by Russia, and returning to the fundamental principles of international law.
Leader of the Crimean Tatar people Mustafa Dzhemilev said he believes Russia’s occupation of Crimea could have been stopped at the very beginning, 12 years ago, if everyone had acted decisively and without compromise.
Mustafa Dzhemilev recalled that the five previous Crimea Platform summits, which began in August 2021, resulted in the adoption of resolutions. They listed all the violations of international law and human rights committed by the aggressor, changes in the demographic composition of Crimea’s population, and other crimes.
“New Ukrainian territories were occupied, rivers of blood were shed, more than a million people were killed, and cities and villages were destroyed. The scale of repression by the occupation authorities in Crimea against all those who dissent, and especially against representatives of the indigenous people, has increased sharply,” the leader of the Crimean Tatar people said.
At the summit, Darya Fursova, a resident of temporarily occupied Crimea, also spoke. Born in Simferopol in 2003, she left for Kyiv in 2021, where she received an education and found a job. She spoke about how difficult it is to live under occupation, face intimidation, and deal with propaganda every day that seeks to change how people think and feel. She noted that not everyone has the opportunity to leave Crimea and have a future in their own country, as she was able to.
“Most children in occupied Crimea do not have that choice. That is why we must keep talking about Crimea. Because behind every day of occupation are the lives of children. We cannot allow generations of Crimean children to grow up believing that occupation is normal,” Darya Fursova said.
In their remarks, the participants of the Crimea Platform summit, including heads of state, stressed that Crimea is Ukraine, that Russia’s war against our country began in 2014 with the occupation of Crimea, and that there can be no just peace without respect for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Following the Sixth Summit of the International Crimea Platform, the participants adopted a final document reaffirming international solidarity with Ukraine and their readiness to continue joint efforts to restore its territorial integrity in accordance with the UN Charter and international law.