Home › Politics › Would Kyiv talk about Crimea? April 2023 signal
Would Kyiv talk about Crimea? April 2023 signal
Summary
A look back at 6 April 2023, when a senior Ukrainian official set out a condition for negotiations over the peninsula, a day after Zelenskyy's Polish visit.
What would it take for Kyiv to sit down and talk about Crimea? On 6 April 2023, Andriy Sybiha, described in reports as a deputy head, offered one answer: Ukraine was ready to negotiate on the future of the peninsula if its counteroffensive reached the administrative border of Crimea.
The statement set a specific threshold. Talks over Crimea were tied not to a date or to outside pressure, but to a military result: Ukrainian forces arriving at the administrative boundary of the peninsula.
The previous day in Poland
The remark followed a high-profile diplomatic moment. On 5 April 2023, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made an official visit to Poland. In a meeting with Polish President Andrzej Duda, he received the Order of the White Eagle, Poland's highest order.
The two events were separate, but they fell on consecutive days. One showed the standing of Ukraine's leadership with a neighbouring state during the Russian invasion. The other outlined the conditions under which Kyiv said it would consider negotiating on Crimea.
What the 6 April statement set out
Sybiha's formulation was conditional. It referred to a counteroffensive that, as of 6 April 2023, was still prospective, and it named the administrative border of Crimea as the point at which negotiations could become possible.
