Russia should not be given an opportunity to manipulate the effort to monitor the situation in the Kerch Strait whatever form it takes, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has said.
“Russia, by default, should not be given an opportunity to manipulate the monitoring effort, about which we have just reached an agreement,” Klimkin said at a joint press conference with his German counterpart Heiko Maas in Kyiv in the evening of Jan. 18.
“That is, for example, Russia’s attempts to lure specialists from Germany and France to the Kerch port and thus politically legalize the occupation of Crimea are by definition impossible,” the Ukrainian Foreign Minister said, recalling that the Russian Federation was already “trying to bring international humanitarian organizations or human rights missions to Crimea.”
“Of course, such monitoring should be based on a clear political stance on the illegitimacy of the usurpation by Russia of the sovereign rights of Ukraine. This is our fundamental stance,” Klimkin said.
