"Scared that the war will break into Crimea." As the Crimeans are preparing for de -occupation, and why the "smaller" is recommended to flee - Refat Chubarov

The head of the Crimean Majlis. On the eve of Independence Day, Ukraine held a second summit of the Crimean Platform, an international initiative aimed at de -occupation of the peninsula. This time it was attended by representatives of 60 states and key world organizations, albeit in online format. But the main thing - rhetoric has changed. Video of the day last year, at the first, constituent summit, foreign participants insisted on one thing: Ukraine should return Crimea only peacefully.

Without this, according to the head of the Majlis of the Crimean Tatar people and the Verkhovna Verkhovna Rada MP Chubarov, they refused to sign the document on joining the platform. However, on February 24, 2022, Russia made a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and this forced foreign partners to speak about Crimea in a different way. "Everyone understands that the point in the Russian-Ukrainian war will be put on the battlefield," Chubarov confesses.

NV spoke with the head of the Majlis about the importance of applications on the platform, and about how a full -scale war changed the life of the inhabitants of the peninsula and what would be his liberation from the Russians. - We communicate with you on the day of the Summit of the Crimean Platform [August 23]. And it happened in completely different conditions than last year.

What, as the head of the Majlis, was it important to hear during this summit? - It was very important for me to make sure that the world remains united around Ukraine in counteracting Russian aggression. We just were convinced of this again. I had no doubt, but it was very important for us to see. And some speakers said that the de-occupation of Crimea is now a stage of the Russian-Ukrainian war, when it comes to defending the independence of the Ukrainian state and its territorial integrity.

Therefore, the liberation of Crimea, its de -occupation is a very important stage of establishing Ukrainian statehood in its internationally recognized borders.

- How did the full -scale war affect the tone of this conversation? Was it more sharp than before? - I quote you one sentence from the declaration of the Crimean platform, which was signed last year: "to create an international Crimean platform as an advisory and coordination format for the purpose of peaceful occupation of the temporary occupation by the Russian Federation of the territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol . . . ".

That is, some countries, I will not call them, insisted last year so that this word "peaceful" would be recorded, because otherwise they will not sign this declaration. This year everyone understands that the point in the Russian-Ukrainian war will be put on the battlefield. Nobody said so, but the tone was like that. For example, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg spoke and said that Ukraine should be sure that we will help as much as needed.