PRESS RELEASE : Ukraine will return Crimea in the way it decides – President

The press release issued by the President of Ukraine on 23 August 2022.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy emphasizes that Crimea is an integral part of Ukraine, and our state will return the peninsula occupied by Russia by any available means. The Head of State said this during a press conference following the Second Summit of the Crimea Platform.

“We will return Crimea, because it is our territory. In any way we decide. We will decide it on our own, without consulting any other state,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

The President recalled that Ukraine had for a long time demonstrated its desire to end the conflict over the occupied territories, in particular Crimea, through diplomatic means, but Russia had not accepted such an approach.

“We were doing it, there was a long process when the ceasefire was in effect. But you see how it all ended. There was a full-scale invasion,” he noted.

At the same time, Volodymyr Zelenskyy emphasized that our army does not strike at civilian objects and the population, in particular, in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.

“We know what we are doing, we know the locations of military facilities and warehouses in the temporarily occupied territories. The Ukrainian troops can work there according to the plan,” the President said.