Chairman of the Crimean State Council Committee on public diplomacy and interethnic relations Yuri Hempel called the conditions for the "return" of the Peninsula, announced by former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavel Klimkin, nonsense.
"Another delusion. I do not think that there will be desperately brave people who will risk taking Crimea. No one will force Crimeans to return to an "alien" Ukraine and leave their historical Homeland-Russia," RIA Novosti quoted the Crimean parliamentarian as saying.
Hempel recalled that the decision to reunite with the Russian Federation was a conscious choice of Crimeans.
"It is necessary for Klimkin and others like him not to forget that Russia can impose sanctions in response, and then it will be very difficult for Ukraine," he stressed.
Earlier, the Ukrainian diplomat listed two conditions for local media to "take" Crimea back under Ukrainian jurisdiction.
The first of them, according to Klimkin, is the continuation of sanctions pressure on Russia, "so that the Peninsula becomes an unbearable burden", and the second is the desire of the residents of the Peninsula to return to Ukraine.
Crimea became a Russian region following a referendum of March 2014, when the majority of the region's residents supported reunification with Russia.
In May 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the issue of ownership of the Peninsula was "finally closed".
Official Kiev still does not recognize the results of the referendum, and the EU and a number of countries that joined it in April 2014 introduced a sanctions regime against the Russian Federation, which is extended every six months.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Danil Shamkin / Ukrinform via ZUMA Wire / TASS