After de-occupation, Crimea to become part of EU together with Ukraine – Zelensky

"For Ukraine, Crimea is a part of our people, a part of our society. We will guarantee freedom for people and bring back modernity. Crimea has been Ukraine. After de-occupation, together with our entire state, it will become part of the European Union. I am sure of that. The passport of a citizen of Ukraine will also be a passport of the European Union. And these are colossal opportunities for all our people living in Crimea," Zelensky said at the Crimea Platform summit, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

The President noted that the Crimean roads would become the roads of the entire European continent, the ports of Crimea would become the ports of entire Europe. "Only Ukraine can connect Simferopol with Berlin, and Yalta with Naples. Only Ukraine is concerned about the real security of Crimea. That is, normal supply of normal clean water, normal waste disposal, effective rules for waste management and sewage. Only Ukraine will be able to build a modern irrigation system in Crimea and integrate Crimean agricultural production and the entire business sector into the European market. Only our state will provide Crimea with a modern affordable medical system, a modern and accessible educational system, and a modern digital system of public services. Ukraine will remove the barbed wire that blocks the way for ordinary people to the best areas, and the illegal fences that simply ragged the coast of our beautiful Crimea," the President said.

He is sure that the victory in the fight against Russian aggression is real: "Therefore, it is necessary to liberate Crimea from occupation. Where it began, it will end there. And this will be an effective resuscitation of the international legal order."

Zelensky thanked those countries that did not remain silent when Russia annexed the peninsula but he also mentioned those who remained silent. And this, in his opinion, became one of the key reasons for what is happening in Ukraine and the world today.

The President mentioned the resistance on the peninsula and the people who defend freedom and do not keep silent: "They are being repressed. But we see them, we know about them, we are grateful to them."

Zelensky also emphasized that Russia had stolen a part of life even from those people who were lucky enough not to become victims of repression.

"The occupation turned Crimea into a depressed and dependent region, into a region of high fences, barbed wire and lawlessness, into an ecological disaster zone, a military bridgehead for aggression and the spread of grief," he said.

Russia occupied the Ukrainian Crimea and some areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions in 2014. On February 24, 2022, Russia unleashed a full-scale war against Ukraine.

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