Duda, Trudeau, Scholz and Stoltenberg to take part in online Crimean Platform summit

Read also: Polish President Duda arrives in Kyiv for talks, attending Crimean Platform summit

The Crimean Platform is a major international negotiating platform created by Ukraine for the de-occupation of Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Crimea.

Last year, the founding summit of the Crimean Platform in Kyiv brought together 46 international delegations, including representatives of all NATO and EU countries.

Read also: Explosions again rock Sevastopol in Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Crimea

The event caused great irritation in the Kremlin.

However, as Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba noted, the decision to hold the second summit of the Crimean Platform even as the Kremlin wages unprovoked war is very important.

“We want to send a very clear message: even if the enemy again approaches Kyiv, we will still plan the liberation of Crimea,” said Kuleba. “It’s very important to understand that no matter how difficult it is, we must always think strategically, and the time will come when we liberate our territories. And that's the message the summit of the Crimean platform sends.”

This year there will be more guests of the summit than last year: more than 60 foreign participants (countries and organizations) have confirmed their participation in the summit, which will be held online for their safety, the First Deputy Foreign Minister Emine Dzhaparova told Ukrinform. She noted that the full list of participants won't be disclosed until the start of the summit.

However, participation in the summit has already been confirmed by:

•   German Chancellor Olaf Scholz

•   Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau,

•   Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida

•   NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg

•   Secretary General of the Council of Europe Maria Pejcinovic-Buric

“Among the participants of the Summit will be not just our traditional partners in the Euro-Atlantic space, but also our friends – the countries of Africa,” notes Dzhaparova. “The American continent also became more represented. There are also participants from Asia.”

Last year, the countries of Africa, South America and Asia (except Japan) were not present at the Crimean Platform.

Read also: CIT expert on recent Crimea explosions and crowdfunded satellite, an interview

“It is also important that the number of international organizations that will participate in the summit has also increased,” added Dzhaparova. “In particular, the OSCE (is attending).”

The Crimean Platform Summit 2022 will focus on the following main topics:

• the role of the temporary occupation of Crimea in Russia’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine;

• joint efforts to restore security and stability in the region of the Black and Azov Seas;

• further steps in response to Russia's violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in Crimea, in particular against ethnic Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars;

• strengthening the policy of non-recognition of any change in the international legal status of Crimea;

the effectiveness of sanctions, their strengthening, and prevention of their circumvention.

“Crimea is Ukraine,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on the eve of the second summit.

“And we will say what we want to do about it, and do what we want. This is a fundamental point.”

According to Kuleba, the event will show how many countries support Ukraine's goal of liberating Crimea.

NV will broadcast the Crimean Platform of 2022.

Crimean Platform 2022 — online

11:47 The Council of Europe confirmed the participation of its Secretary General in the Second Summit of the Crimean Platform

Maria Pejcinovic-Burich will speak today about the Council of Europe's support for Ukraine and human rights issues in Crimea.

10:50 Second Crimean Platform summit will be even stronger than last year - Zelenskyy

“We are already fully prepared for the second summit of the Crimean Platform, we are significantly expanding its format,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an address on the eve of the summit. “This year the summit will be even stronger than in the past, both in terms of the list of the participants and the topics of discussion.”

10:20 "The blue-yellow flag will wave in the temporarily occupied territories" – before the start of the Crimean platform, Zelenskyy took part in a ceremony of the raising of the state flag

The Ukrainian state flag will return forever to the temporarily occupied territories, Zelenskyy said in Kyiv.

“The blue-yellow flag will wave in the temporarily occupied territories,” he said. “It will always wave.”

“There cannot be the flag of those who are losing this war on Victory Square in Melitopol. There cannot be the flag of those who don’t know what freedom is on Freedom Square in Kherson,” Zelenskyy said.

According to him, "it will be on Azov Avenue in Berdyansk and in Skadovsk, over the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant in Enerhodar and over the Kakhovskaya Hydraulic Power Plant, on the Adzhigol lighthouse and on Savur-Mohyla, on the banks of Siverskyi Donets River, the Kalmius, near Oleshkivsky sands – there cannot be a flag there of those who hear these Ukrainian names for the first time."

"And in Crimea, there will be Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar flags in Yalta, Simferopol, Dzhankoi, on Ai-Petri,” the president said.

“And no matter how some try to distort history, these flags are historically associated with Crimea."

10:05 “The free world has the face of Ukraine”: Duda speaks in the Rada

The deputies greeted him with applause and the Polish anthem, states the website of the Office of the Head of the Polish State.

“The free world has the face of Ukraine,” Duda said in his address to the Ukrainian parliament. “Thank you for protecting Europe from the invasion of Russian imperialism, and that the spirit of a free nation is stronger. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your resistance, courage and love of freedom.”

According to Duda, it's time to sign a new good neighborly agreement, which "will take into account what we have built in our relations, at least in recent months." According to the President of Poland, Russian aggression has shown that the network of road, rail and infrastructure links between Ukraine and Poland is insufficient and needs to be improved.

“The Polish-Ukrainian border should unite, not divide us,” Duda said, and stressed that a high-speed rail link between Kyiv and Warsaw would be a sign of good Polish-Ukrainian relations. “We will build it together,” he said to the applause of Ukrainian parliamentarians.

According to the Polish president, only Ukraine has the right to decide its future. “(Let) nothing (be decided) about you, without you,” he said.

Duda will also take part in the 2nd Crimean Platform Summit.

09:35 Polish President Andrzej Duda arrived in Kyiv to participate in the Crimean Platform

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