Russia Making Threats Against Countries that Agreed to Participate in Crimean Platform Summit

Russian diplomats are making threats against those countries that agreed to take part in the Crimean Platform international summit.

“Russian diplomatic missions make efforts to discredit the Crimean Platform. We receive information about this, including from our partners. They tell us about the meetings with the Russian ambassadors and about the fact that at these meetings they talk about the Crimean Platform and how the countries that will join it will be treated. It is a language of threats. Indeed, not every country has the resources to ignore these threats. There are a number of countries for which cooperation with Russia is critical, whether in the economic sphere or military cooperation. We should also be clear-eyed about this,” First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Emine Dzheppar said in an interview with the Radio Liberty’s Crimea Realities project.

According to her, if some states fail to join the Crimean Platform this year for various reasons, Ukraine will not “close the door on them” but will continue to work with them in the future, regardless of who is most skeptical or refuses to cooperate within the framework of this initiative. The Crimean Platform will be open to anyone who wishes to join it.

The other day, the media reported that Russian diplomats made direct threats of worsening relations with Moscow and abandoning assistance. First of all, this refers to African and Asian states that heavily depend on Russia’s foreign policy. President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan are most likely not to arrive in Kyiv in August. However, delegations of these countries will make a visit to Ukraine.

To hit the Crimean Platform even harder, the Kremlin wants to summon the CIS leaders in Crimea on the very days when the forum will take place in Kyiv. It is known that self-proclaimed President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenka is most likely to arrive on the occupied peninsula. The visits of other heads of the CIS member states have not been confirmed yet.

As a reminder, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky considers the creation of the Crimean Platform a serious step towards the de-occupation of the peninsula. During the inaugural summit in Kyiv on 23 August, a permanent office will be established and security initiatives in the Azov-Black Sea region will be discussed.

Bohdan Marusyak