The time for the peaceful return of Crimea has already passed, currently, there are no options but force to solve this kind of issue with Russia.
Mykhailo Podoliak, the adviser to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, stated this in an interview with Krym.Realii.
"Let's say frankly that for 8 years we talked about Crimea just for the sake of talking. About political and diplomatic settlement, realizing that it is impossible. Well, that is, we just pretended, I mean, not you and I, and not only Ukraine, but the world in general pretended that there was some possibility to solve the problem diplomatically. I would like to remind you Transnistria - is the issue is solved? According to the formula five plus two. Is the issue of Abkhazia, for example, solved? No, it is not! Russia never solves anything until it gets, let's say, a forceful understanding that it is necessary to agree on something with these countries", Podoliak said.
At the same time, according to Podoliak, Russia does not have the resources to hold Crimea, and there are forces to fight remained just until the spring of 2023.
"We need six months, five or seven months and we will be in Crimea. We saw a much worse situation ten months ago, and I think that no one at all thought that in 10 months you and I would be able to seriously talk about the fact that the war will definitely allow us to liberate Crimea, right? After all, we didn't talk about it", said Podoliak.
According to him, no one believed that in 2022 or already in 2023 we will be able to really, seriously talk about the fact that Crimea will be de-occupied. Everyone thought that it would be a story of 20-30-50 years.
Podoliak noted that such terms of the de-occupation of Crimea "may be too optimistic, but this is a mathematically verified optimism".
