© TASS

On August 23, Kiev hosted the second online summit, which Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov once called "a coven where the West will continue to cultivate neo-Nazi and racist sentiments among the current Ukrainian authorities". But Vladimir Zelensky’s neo-Nazi regime calls the event in a different and much more pretentious manner — the Crimea Platform.

Kiev deems this Zelensky-initiated forum as "a new international consultation and coordination format… aimed at improving the effectiveness of the international response to the ongoing occupation of Crimea … increasing international pressure on the Kremlin … as well as achieving the main goal — deoccupation of Crimea and its return to Ukraine." Dream on!

For the first time, the Crimea Platform was held in the Ukrainian capital last year, having engaged about 40 countries and international organizations. Yet, amid Russia’s special military operation to protect the population of Donbass, this year there are 60 of them. The event doesn't do any good, no matter how its hosts speak for the sake of it or brand it "global" — this refers to both last year and this one. An all-round virtual event.

Yes, the Kiev regime’s plans associated with the forum are huge. But their scale is senseless. For instance, the fact that in 2014 the peninsula residents refused to recognize the results of the Kiev neo-Nazi coup and chose to return home in a referendum is referred to as "occupation". Since then, "Crimea has been an integral part of the Russian Federation for 8 years," State Duma deputy from the peninsula Konstantin Bakharev says.

Despite all the provocations by the Ukrainian authorities, Crimea has chosen its path and is building a new life. And the provocations are getting increasingly frequent, especially these recent days. Therefore, this year’s Crimea Platform is sort of demonstratively bookending all those massive rocket, drone and terrorist sabotage attacks on military and civilian facilities in Crimea, which Ukraine has been actively undertaking over the past couple of months.

Kiev apparently needed all these actions only to acknowledge the Ukrainian army’s efficiency and capacity, as well as those of the entire regime in the eyes of its Western curators and sponsors who need to make sure Kiev really needs more money and weaponry to counteract Russia’s ongoing mission. The mythical counteroffensive supposed to coincide with Ukraine’s Independence Day on August 24, part of which were sabotage attacks on Crimea, seems to have been subordinated to the same goal.

Admittedly, the Kiev regime's plan worked out partially, with respect to getting money from the West, not combat victories. Thus, prior to that country’s major holiday, the United States allocated another $775 million in military aid, including all sorts of missiles, drones and ammunition. Great Britain, Denmark, Finland and Sweden agreed to keep helping the Ukrainian authorities and thus inspired Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia to the "new anti-Russian feats".

Undoubtedly, there is no special need for Mr. Zelensky to convince the United States of supporting the Kiev regime in its fight against the Russian army. Even without this, Washington will fight down "to the last Ukrainian soldier", with its ultimate goal being not to save Ukraine, but to destroy our country and oust it from the global stage. Ukraine is a mere tool in this process, just that much. France, Germany, Italy, and a number of other countries that have recently been more skeptical about helping Ukraine, are harder to persuade.

But even the United States, in order to constantly warm up and protract the conflict in Ukraine, needs to constantly fuel fire, whether it be finances or weapons or all kinds of propaganda slogans like "returning Crimea to Kiev." However, the entire hysteria, which once again manifested itself at this year's Crimea Platform summit, is merely promises. For example, in the Donbass, the allied forces keep grinding high-end units of the Ukrainian army, punitive battalions of ideologically active neo-Nazis, and foreign mercenaries into bio-waste. And if the current forum brings Ukraine new tranches, this will only prolong the Kiev regime’s agony, without affecting Russia's ultimate goal to liberate the Donbass from neo-Nazis and strengthen our country’s strategic security.

Let’s give a few opinions about the Crimea Platform summit. Russian President’s Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov described it as anti-Russian and extremely unfriendly. And head of the Republic of Crimea Sergey Aksenov that “participants of the Crimea Platform international summit held by Kiev are terrorists or their accomplices.” "It absolutely does not matter what Zelensky and members of his gang will talk during this coven, because they are terrorists. And terrorists' speeches can only be of interest if they testify to an investigation and a court. It also doesn't matter what the other summit participants say: in fact, they are terrorist accomplices," Aksenov posted on his Telegram channel on Tuesday.

In turn, Crimea-based political analyst Ruslan Balbek called the summit a sinkhole wasting time and money but lacking practical utility. "Based on a careful thought, the European leaders made up their minds to hold the summit online to stay in their comfortable office chairs and tell their Ukrainian colleagues how to defeat Russia and return Crimea. But this is only theory, because one can hardly imagine any European politician sitting in a trench under Russian artillery fire," Balbek said. In his opinion, the summit has turned into a kind of telethon for the participants to express sympathy and encourage Kiev, and then go about their daily business. "In the end, to them Ukraine is just an ordinary participant in a worthless conference," the expert added.

To sum up, we shall emphasize that, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the issue of Crimea is over. Despite all the "platforms" the Kiev regime conducts, it will never have the peninsula back under its control, as its residents have long expressed their opinion and won’t back away from it. And Moscow will help them build a new life together with the whole of Russia.