Despite the fact that Crimea has been occupied for 6 years, there is no strategy for de-occupation and reintegration of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol. There is still no regulatory framework of Ukraine aimed at both de-occupation of Crimea and its reintegration. The manager of the Crimean Tatar Resource Center Zarema Bariieva said at an interview with the Crimea.Realities media agency.
“A model of the Crimea’s future in Ukraine has not yet been proposed so that Crimean residents strive for return. To reintegrate Crimea, huge financial investments will be needed, which the state does not have. The state budget should include an article on financing the reintegration of Crimea. There is still no Crimean Reintegration Fund”,- said the manager of the Crimean Tatar Resource Center.
According to Zarema Bariieva, even currently existing state institutions dedicated to the issues of Crimea do not carry out the proper preparatory work for the return of Crimea.
“It seems that for four years now there has been a central executive body – the Ministry for the Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine, the former Ministry for the Issues of Temporarily Occupied Territories and Internally Displaced Persons, which was supposed to shape state policy in this area. However, it is even difficult to analyze the results of the work of this department in the occupied Crimea, since there are no visible results. During these 4 years, not a single law of Ukraine was adopted, which would be developed by this Ministry. There is no law on transitional justice, as well as laws ensuring the implementation of the collective rights of indigenous peoples, and there are no representative bodies of the ARC and the city of Sevastopol in exile, which should already work nowadays on adapting the legal acts of the republic to the conditions of the returned Crimea. Yes, there is the Mission of the President of Ukraine in the AR of Crimea, the main departments of the National Police of Ukraine and the SBU, the Prosecutor's office of the AR of Crimea, but these are not the representative bodies. What will Ukraine do with collaborators? How will Ukraine form representative bodies? Who will have the right to elect them? Only questions… the work on solution of these issues should have been commenceed long before”,- said Zarema Bariieva.
In the context of the coronavirus pandemic, there is an opportunity to put pressure on Russia to return Crimea to Ukraine, say three former American ambassadors in Kyiv – Stephen Pifer, John Herbst and William Taylor. They expressed such an opinion in a publication for the NPR. Ex-ambassadors are convinced that the COVID-19 pandemic “gives an unexpected opportunity” to end the conflict in Ukraine.