Nine years since the annexation of Crimea

Romanian foreign office reiterates its position to condemn and not to recognise Russias illegal annexation of Crimea.

Leyla Cheamil, 20.03.2023, 13:50

Surrounded
by two seas, the Black Sea to the west and south, and the Sea of Azov
to the east, and acting as the border between the western world and
the Pontic-Caspian steppe, Crimea has been a disputed territory for
centuries. Romans, Goths, Byzantines, Cumans and Slavs all wanted to
control this much-coveted peninsula. In 2014, Crimea, which was
Ukrainian territory at the time, was illegally annexed by Russia,
which eight years later went on to launch a large-scale invasion of
neighbouring Ukraine.

Romania,
which unconditionally supports Ukraine, will maintain its firm
position to condemn and not to recognise the illegal annexation by
the Russian Federation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the
city of Sevastopol, said Romania’s foreign ministry. It also
reiterated support for Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and
territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders.
The Romanian foreign office said this annexation represents a strong
violation of international law and the multilateral agreements Russia
is part of, including the Charter of the United Nations and the
Helsinki Final Act. Romania also condemns the use by the Russian
armed forces of the territory of Crimea in the context of Russia’s
illegal and unprovoked war of aggression launched against the
neighbouring
Ukraine on 24th
February 2022.

A
statement from the Romanian foreign ministry says Romania reiterates
that it also
does
not recognise the illegal annexation by the Russian Federation of
four regions in the east of Ukraine, Luhansk,
Donetsk,
Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, which,
according to Bucharest, are an indivisible part of the national
territory of Ukraine under international law. EFE
notes that with the illegal annexation of these four regions last
September, Russia has
transformed
the Sea of Azov into its own internal sea, thus ensuring the security
of Crimea, which has
also become
a line of defence.

For
its part, Ukraine says it will win back the occupied territory. Since
2020, it has marked the Day of Resistance to the
Occupation of Crimea and Sevastopol on 26th
February, the date of the biggest demonstration to support the
integrity and unity of the Ukrainian state in Simferopol, Crimea’s
administrative centre, in 2014. In August 2021, Kyiv launched the
Crimea Platform in an attempt to gather international support to
regain the peninsula and which, in the last year, has requested
Russia to immediately end hostilities and withdraw its troops from
the occupied territories in Ukraine. (CM)