On April 25, the “Crimea Wave” Forum for representatives of Ukrainian youth took place in the “Parkovy” exhibition center in Kyiv. Our correspondent, who was present at the event, collected the main theses of its participants.
Oleksandr Kornienko, the first deputy chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, said: “no one has any doubt that Ukraine will return Crimea… Neutral countries and even enemy representatives at meetings nod their heads and understand that everything started with Crimea and must end with our victory… The return of Crimea – our right There are our people, our land… We will definitely go to the Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar Koktebel festival,” added Kornienko.
Oleksandr Kornienko notes that it is important to communicate with young people now and explain why it is so important and exactly how to restore Crimea. “We will need a large number of future officials, cultural figures, representatives of various industries who will actually do this. That’s why we’re talking about Crimea now in order to effectively and quickly implement all our strategies,” added the parliamentarian.
People’s deputy Olena Shulyak reported that: “The occupied peninsula continues to age, despite the fact that in recent years the population growth of Crimea and Sevastopol amounted to about 35%. The demographic situation in Crimea is getting worse every year, the birth rate continues to fall.” Shulyak also added that “on the territory of the peninsula there are 874 detachments of the so-called “youth army”, the total number of which is more than 29 thousand people.”
The leader of the Crimean Tatar people, Mustafa Dzhemilev, during his address to the participants of the Forum, indicated that: “The recognition of Crimea as “Russian”, as some representatives are now trying to say, will deprive the Crimean Tatars of their future and doom them to extinction.”
The politician emphasized that if Russia retains control over Crimea, it will lead to a number of negative consequences for Ukraine and the world community in general: “The military base created in Crimea will become the basis for further aggression after Russia recovers from the defeat. This is a security threat. Nuclear weapons will spread very quickly. The authority of European and Western countries will drop sharply. And this is a huge loss to the world order. There are no prospects for anyone… Just as there are no prospects for the Crimean Tatars,” said Dzhemilev and emphasized that there can be no lasting peace with Russia until Ukraine frees Crimea.
People’s deputy Vitaly Bezgin noted that “if someone hopes that our arrival in Crimea will immediately lead to a very sudden tourist season, I have great doubts that this was approximately the case. For me, the reintegration of Crimea, including socio-economic, begins with very difficult processes – the restoration of public Ukrainian power…”. Maryana Oleskiv, head of the State Agency for Tourism Development, added on this issue that “in order to build a tourism system, you need, firstly, a plan, secondly, time, systemic actions, and thirdly, people…”.
The Permanent Representative of the President of Ukraine in the AR of Crimea Tamila Tasheva reported that: “It is very important for us that young people are involved. They should become reconstruction personnel who will go to the Crimean peninsula and rebuild our Crimea… Now there is a much better understanding that Crimea will definitely be de-occupied. First of all, due to the fact that for Ukraine this is also an existential war, and for our people there is no way back, we must return all the territories.”
Oleksandr Tkachenko, the Minister of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine, made a presentation in which he demonstrated the cultural side of Crimea, talking about museums, the number of illegally exported paintings, and the illegal use of cultural heritage objects.
Deputy Minister of Reintegration Anatoly Stelmakh said: “Armed forces liberate our territory, it will happen 100 %… I wanted to make it clear that if back in 2014 we hoped for a diplomatic way to liberate Crimea, now there are no such hopes. Crimea will definitely be liberated by military means. And after the liberation, something must happen, to say the least, our Ministry is working on the first steps that the government will take after the liberation of our peninsula.”
Anatoly Stelmakh added that one of the important key points is: information security. “We have to make sure that Russian mass media do not dominate Crimea. There should be an honest opinion of the Ukrainian authorities, there they should have access to foreign media. These people should stop living in a vacuum of Russian propaganda,” the official added.
“Our ministry, together with … the Office of the President, is working on a normative legal act on the creation of a personnel reserve. State authorities will compile lists of people, which will be summarized by the Civil Service Agency. In this way, a register of workers who will go to Crimea after his release will be created. All positions in Crimea should be filled by professional people and, certainly, patriots,” Stelmakh noted.
The first deputy regional prosecutor Vitaly Secretar indicated that: “in our proceedings, there are now more than a thousand persons suspected of committing various types of crimes committed on the territory of Crimea. This is also from the so-called “self-defenders”, “people’s soldiers”, state traitors, war criminals and so on.”
Alyona Lunyova, human rights defender of the ZMINA Human Rights Center, pointed out regarding the de-occupation that “the biggest mistake was to waste time because now we are so actively talking about return, about integration programs. However, we received the first strategy for the de-occupation of Crimea only in 2021…”.
