Sir,

In your article ‘EU warned of Russia’s Arctic appetite’, you wrote “Poignant, who is an historian by training, recalls that the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev made the historic mistake of donating Crimea to Ukraine”.

Crimea wasn’t donated to Ukraine – this is a beautiful myth. The Parliament of the Soviet Union requested the Parliament of the Ukrainian Socialistic Republic to accept the Crimea under its jurisdiction, because it failed to arrange proper water supplies and development for that territory. After considering the request, the Ukrainian Parliament accepted it by passing the respective resolution.

To compensate the losses of the Russian Socialistic Republic, the same amount of Ukrainian territory in the east was transferred to Russia.

Thus it was not a donation. It can be classified as an exchange of territories between countries. Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has all the respective documentation and maps before and after the exchange.

How would the French react to the discovery that the Champagne region (which is irrefutably French) was donated to France by the Germans? I doubt that the reaction would be very good. So, why should we stand for such inconsistencies? Because we are Ukrainians? Crimea is on Ukrainian territory and no speculation on this is acceptable.

Sincerely,

Oleksandr Tereshchenko
International lawyer