Russian Ambassador to Germany Sergei Nechaev criticized the West for ignoring the prerequisites for the return of Crimea from Ukraine. He wrote about this in his article for the Berliner Zeitung, RIA Novosti reports.
According to him, the decision to annex Crimea was not made suddenly, it was preceded by development, which Western countries prefer not to notice. The Russian diplomat noted that the root cause of the internal Ukrainian conflict and all subsequent problems was a coup d'etat, which contradicted the norms of national and international law, and was also carried out with the support of several Western countries. He added that the purpose of such actions was to provoke disagreements between Moscow and Ukraine and make Kiev an obedient executor of someone else's will.
Nechaev stressed that the events in Crimea were not short-term side effects of the revolution. He also said that misinformation about the human rights situation on the peninsula is spreading in the West, based only on the statements of the Kiev authorities. At the same time, the diplomat said that, despite the pressure from the sanctions, Crimea has become one of the most dynamic regions of Russia in recent years.
Earlier, the deputy of the German parliament (Bundestag) Waldemar Gerdt said that for the recognition of Crimea as Russian, a change of political elites in Western countries would be required. According to him, Western countries cannot agree with the Russian status of Crimea, because otherwise they will have to abandon plans to expand NATO to the east.
Crimea became part of Russia in March 2014 after a referendum in which the overwhelming majority of those who voted in the region supported such a decision. Ukraine, the EU countries and the United States refused to recognize the results of the vote, calling the reunification of the peninsula with mainland Russia an annexation. The Russian authorities reject these allegations and insist that the accession procedure was in accordance with international law.
