Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Oleksiy Danilov addresses the media in Kiev, Ukraine, February 23, 2022.
Press Office of the President of Ukraine | Reuters
A senior Ukrainian official on Sunday outlined a series of steps the federal government in Kiev will take once it regains control of Crimea, including the dismantling of a strategic bridge linking the occupied Black Sea Peninsula with Russia.
Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, published the plan because the Ukrainian military prepares for a spring counter-offensive in hopes of achieving latest decisive gains after greater than 13 months of war that will end a full-scale Russian invasion.
Moscow annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, but most of the world doesn’t recognize it as Russian territory. The longer term status of the peninsula will be a key element in any negotiations to finish the present fighting.
The Kremlin demanded that Ukraine recognize Russia’s sovereignty over Crimea and that Moscow recognize other land gains as a condition of peace. Kiev has ruled out any peace talks with Moscow until Russian troops leave all occupied territories, including Crimea.
Danilov suggested prosecuting Ukrainians who worked for the Moscow-appointed administration in Crimea, adding that some face criminal charges and others will lose government pensions and be barred from public positions.
All Russian residents who moved to Crimea after 2014 needs to be expelled and all real estate transactions concluded under Russian rule annulled, Danilov wrote on Facebook.
As part of the plan, he also called for the dismantling of the 19-kilometre (12 mi) bridge that Russia had built across Crimea. In October, a truck bomb seriously damaged the bridge, the longest in Europe. Moscow blamed Ukrainian military intelligence for the attack.
Russia repaired the damaged section of the bridge and restored the flow of supplies to Crimea, which served as a key hub for the Russian military through the war. Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the bombing, but Ukrainian officials have repeatedly threatened to hit the bridge prior to now.
Danilov also advocated changing the name of town of Sevastopol, which had been the most important base of the Russian Black Sea Fleet for the reason that nineteenth century. He said it may very well be called Site 6 before Ukrainian parliaments select a different name, suggesting Akhtiar after the village that once stood on the positioning of today’s city.
The Moscow-appointed head of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhayev, dismissed Danilov’s plan as “sick”.
“It might be a mistake to take the comments of sick people seriously. They must be cured, and that’s what our military is doing now,” Razvozhayev told the Russian state news agency Tass.
Danilov released his plan as Ukrainian troops prepared to make use of newly delivered Western weapons, including dozens of battle tanks, to interrupt through Russian defenses and retake occupied areas in a counter-offensive expected later this month.
Russian troops are attempting to seize the important thing Ukrainian stronghold of Bakhmut as part of their efforts to seize the whole Donetsk region, which is a component of Ukraine’s eastern industrial center of Donbass. The 8-month campaign for Bakhmut is the longest and potentially deadliest battle of the war.
4 civilians have been killed and 15 injured in recent Russian rocket and artillery attacks since Saturday, in line with the Ukrainian armed forces.
The war, which lasted until the 14th month, left entire cities in ruins and killed tens of hundreds of people.
Ukrainian sports minister Vadym Huttajt said 262 Ukrainian athletes were killed, confirming Kiev’s call to exclude Russia from the Olympics.
Vitaly Merinov, a four-time world champion in kickboxing, was among the many Ukrainian athletes who died through the war. Merinov, who joined the Ukrainian army, died on Friday from wounds sustained in combat, the mayor of the western city of Ivano-Frankivsk said.