OREANDA-NEWS. Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany Andriy Melnyk called on Berlin to make every effort to "return" Crimea to Ukraine.

According to the Ukrainian ambassador, it is the FRG that has a "moral duty" to play a decisive role in this issue, since it is responsible to Ukraine for the violence of the National Socialists. The ambassador noted that the peninsula in this situation had a particularly tragic fate, which in the current German society is not customary to remember.

The German edition Berliner Zeitung quotes the words of the Ukrainian ambassador: "The moral duty of the Federal Republic comes from Germany's historical responsibility to Ukraine for Nazi tyranny. Germany has twice occupied Crimea by military means in the last century."

Therefore, the diplomat believes, Germany, given its "colonial past in Crimea" and the millions of Ukrainian victims of fascist terror, should use all political and economic instruments to "return" the peninsula to Ukraine.

Crimea again became a Russian region after a referendum held there in March 2014, in which 96.77% of the voters of the Republic of Crimea and 95.6% of Sevastopol residents spoke in favor of joining Russia. Ukraine still considers Crimea to be its own, but temporarily occupied territory. Kiev announced plans to discuss the issue of "returning" the peninsula at the summit of the "Crimean Platform", scheduled for 23 August.