What did the Crimea Platform summit in Kyiv achieve?
At a conference on the future of Crimea, representatives of around 50 countries have once again condemned Russia's annexation. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for clear support for the "de-occupation" of the peninsula. A Kremlin spokesman criticised the summit as an "anti-Russian event". Russian and Ukrainian media take stock of the event and come to very different conclusions.
Zelensky's biggest foreign policy coup
The Ukrainian president has got Crimea back in the headlines, gordonua.com comments approvingly:
“Until yesterday, only the most stubborn and romantic souls were still taking up the cause of Crimea. As of yesterday, the country is back on the agenda of the world's 46 most important states. The Crimea Platform is clearly the most important geopolitical victory of Volodymyr Zelensky's two-year presidency. This is not only a super PR stunt, it's also the basis for the project of Crimea's return home.”
A pointless event
The state-owned news agency Ria Novosti sees the conference as a shot in the dark:
“Representatives of Western states and structures gathered, repeatd the time-worn refrain about the 'Russian threat', signed a strange document that they obviously hadn't read properly and called it the 'Crimea Declaration'. One could say that the mountain gave birth to a mouse, but here it was not so much a mountain but a scurry of mice that gave birth to a 'platform'. The attempt to find out whether the organisers had achieved their intended goal runs into a serious problem: no one had ever really explained what the actual final goal behind it was.”
Pressure on Moscow having an impact
The significance of the summit should not be underestimated, advises the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung:
“The broad participation shows that despite great efforts, Moscow has not succeeded in achieving even tacit acceptance for its land theft among the international community. Moscow's reaction to the meeting was correspondingly angry. Even if a strongly worded final declaration remains its only outcome: it is important to maintain this kind of pressure on the regime in Moscow. It helps to protect Ukraine - and other potential victims - from further Russian aggression.”
Don't give up Crimea without a fight
Rzeczpospolita demands more support for Ukraine:
“The West is washing its hands of this matter. That much is evident in Kyiv. There is also no sign of any forces within Russia that could impose a change in the current Russian president's insane imperialistic policies. This, in turn, puts us in permanent confrontation with the Kremlin whether we like it or not. We have no choice but to continue fighting for Crimea.”
Putin tightens his grip on the gas tap
Gas exports from Russia give Moscow a great deal of power, warns Sydsvenskan, referring to Ukrainian President Zelensky's statement that Nordstream 2 has changed the rules of the game once more:
“Sure, Ukraine has an income when Russian gas flows through the country, so of course Zelensky is thinking partly about the state budget. But unfortunately there is more to the warnings. Time and again, Russian President Vladimir Putin has raised his fist at Kyiv while gripping the gas tap with his other hand. So why should the Kremlin not resort to the same tactics in the event of new disputes, or indeed annexations, against EU countries? There needs to be much more talk about this question in Brussels.”