Opinions & Interviews

Lukashenko: Ukraine simply handed over Crimea to Russia

 MINSK, 17 December (BelTA) – Ukraine simply handed over Crimea to Russia in 2014; they never put up a fight, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said in an interview with the U.S. media company Newsmax, BelTA has learned.

In one of her questions, interviewer Greta Conway Van Susteren mentioned Crimea, which is where, according to the Ukrainian side, the war began in 2014.

There was no war in Crimea. Today, Zelensky and the Ukrainian authorities claim that Crimea is Ukrainian. Crimea is an absolute gem. Whoever it belongs to, it is a gem. It’s a paradise,” Aleksandr Lukashenko noted. “They say the war began then. War is when two sides fight face to face, weapons in hand. Not a single shot was fired by the Ukrainians in Crimea. Why would the Russians need to shoot when they had taken and liberated, as they say, Crimea? There was no need to use weapons, because no one fought for Crimea. I know it for sure. Not a single shot fired by Ukraine.”

Responding to the suggestion that Russia annexed Crimea, the Belarusian president said: “You can call it annexed, you can call it liberated, you can call it seized. That’s a philosophical question, that’s not the point. But if it’s your land, why didn’t you defend it? The Ukrainians gave it away, they simply handed it over to the Russians. I’ve said it before: the Russians acted wisely there. They made a deal with those who were supposed to defend Crimea, and in this way, Crimea was essentially surrendered to the ‘green men’, as you called them back then.”

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