The European Union will never recognize the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula as legally Russian, the bloc’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on April 22.

Kallas’ comments come in response to reports that the recognition of Crimea as Russian territory is being considered as part of a U.S.-backed proposal to end the war in Ukraine.

“Crimea is Ukraine,” Kallas told the AFP.

  • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    401·
    2 days ago

    Hard to know for sure since polls and elections conducted by the Russian government are about as reliable as my cats’ reporting on whether or not there’s food in their bowls.

    Most likely, the majority consider themselves Ukrainian but are too oppressed by the occupying forces for their voices to be heard.

    • barsoap@lemm.eeEnglish
      29·
      2 days ago

      Crimea voted for independence from the USSR just as other oblasts did. There once was an independence movement but it lost itself between “It’d actually be quite hard for such a small nation” and “Ukraine treats us fairly”. No talk but among fringes of the fringe about joining Russia. Good relations with Russia, sure, but that ship now has sailed.

      …and that’s with the USSR shipping lots of Russians into Crimea over the centuries, diluting the Tatar population. They did even more of that now and those new arrivals will probably, and rightly, be considered illegal immigrants down the line, and deported. Which is mild treatment because settling in occupied territories is a war crime.