The initiative of Crimean Greeks national and culture autonomy leader Ivan Shonus to rename the annexed Crimea to “Republic of Crimea-Tavrida” caused serious discussion not only in the political establishment of Russian Federation, but in the world community in general.
The controversy of this initiative is obvious as even Russian politics have no unanimous opinion – to rename or not to rename the region, which is not considered by the absolute majority of UN members as Russian one. Though the support of renaming idea by so-called vice-prime minister Georgy Muradov and senator Sergey Tsekov, this offer arouse negative reaction of Natalia Poklonskaya and “designee speaker of Crimean parliament” Vladimir Konstantinov. The initiative to rename Crimea was described as senseless and having no practical importance.
Indeed it has no sense to rename what does not belong to you. As we have stated above, the annexation of Crimea is not recognized by the world community, which recognize Crimea as integral part of Ukraine. That is why the world will never recognize mythical Tavrida as well as the world has never recognized “Republic of Crimea” and any other name, given to Crimea by Russian government.
There is one important detail in the initiative of Ivan Shonus (lets imagine that it is his own offer, because it is highly unlikely that the leader of organization that is absolutely loyal to federal government could reveal such idea without approval of that government) that could have consequence of not only in the context of Crimea, but also in the context of further Kremlin’s plans for Ukraine. These plans are aggressive and expansionist. We have to make a short historical digression to prove it.
Tavrida or Tavric governorate was created on the Oct. 8 1802, due to the order of Russian tsar Alexander I, as the result renaming of Novorossya governorate and some changes of its administrative boundaries. But Tavrida included not only the territory of Crimea, but also the territories of modern Mykolaiv and Kherson regions of Ukraine. The 2014-2015 statements of Russian politics about the need for “breaking the corridor to Crimea” perfectly correlate with the idea to rename Crimea by adding another name to it, which means Russia consider hinterland regions of Ukraine as Russian ones. It would be too naïve to believe that Ivan Shonus (in fact, those Russian intelligence officers who gave him permission to make this statement on the renaming of Crimea) and Russian politics named above did not understand the connotation of renaming Crimea, its “enlargement” with no legal reasons at all.
Such statements clearly show that the passion of European politics, such as Emmanuel Macron, to find compromise with Russia has only one result: the dialogue is concerned by Russia only as weakness of united Europe and as opportunity to continue aggression and occupation of neighboring states.
Nevertheless, we vote to return Russia in PACE, support its initiatives during the UN General Assembly meetings and hope for peace.
But if you want peace, prepare for war.
