Eight years ago, Russia carried out an armed annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. On 18 March 2014, following an illegitimate “referendum”, Crimea was illicitly declared part of the Russian Federation. Just as we had predicted, it turned out to be but a prelude to Russia’s military activities planned for years to come in order to undermine the territorial integrity of Ukraine. On 24 February 2022, Russia resolved to carry on with its lawbreaking measures and resorted to a brutal and unprovoked aggression against the entire Ukrainian territory. An attack on a sovereign, peaceful and democratic state obviously contradicts the fundamental rules of our civilisation and recalls the darkest times in the history of the 20^th century. It is a flagrant and unquestionable violation of the fundamental principles of international law, and a totally premeditated one.

Poland consistently deplores the illegal annexation of Crimea and condemns in the strongest possible terms the unprecedented armed attack on Ukraine. We continue with an unwavering support for Ukraine’s efforts to maintain its territorial integrity.

We express our firm opposition to unlawful measures taken by the Russian Federation with the aim to legitimise and perpetuate the illegal annexation of Crimea. We also deplore the violations of human rights, including the persecution of the native Crimean Tartars, the progressing militarisation of the peninsula, as well as forced conscription into the Russian army and discrimination based on belief.

We are appalled by Russia’s barbaric attacks on Ukraine’s civilian population, including children, and on other non-military targets, such as schools, kindergartens, cultural institutions. Russia has purposefully been breaking the principles of international law hoping to break the Ukrainian society and force it into a surrender. The whole world is now looking up to the heroic defender of Ukraine. We deplore the criminal shelling of the theatre in Mariupol in which Ukrainian civilians – including children – had taken shelter from a Russian attack. We will never consent to putting people’s lives at stake.

We demand that Russia immediately cease the use of military force on a mass scale against a sovereign European state and unconditionally withdraw all its forces and military equipment from the whole of Ukraine’s territory, not only Crimea, the illegally annexed peninsula used by the Russian Federation in its barbarous armed aggression against the rest of Ukraine. We call on the Russian Federation to observe the agreements involving ceasefire regimes, and to enable access for the civilian population to humanitarian aid. We demand that the Russian Federation abandons its aggressive policy.

 

Łukasz Jasina
MFA Press Spokesman