‘Give Putin Crimea and he will open a path to hell’, warns Ukrainian human rights leader

A leading Ukrainian human rights lawyer has warned handing over Crimea to Vladimir Putin would “open a path to hell” and lead to a world of further wars and great violence.

Oleksandra Matviichuk, who is head of the non-profit Centre for Civil Liberties, warned Russia must not be allowed to walk away with fresh territory and no security guarantees after unleashing horror on Ukraine.

She believes such a failure to rein in the Kremlin would see Putin and rogue leaders around the world emboldened to launch new wars and snatch up neighbouring land.

It comes as peace talks between Russian and Ukraine reach a key stage, with US president Donald Trump calling on leaders to meet for “very high level talks” and insisting they are close to ending the bloody three-year war.

Trump said in an interview earlier this week that Crimea – a strategic peninsula along the Black Sea in southern Ukraine – “will stay with Russia”.

It was seized by Russia in 2014, years before the full-scale invasion that began in 2022.

Matviichuk said the current conflict is the result of Russia being allowed to act with “total impunity for decades” and warned if Putin is rewarded for the invasion, he will go further.

© Vladimir Sindeyeve/NurPhoto/Shut

She said: “For now, Ukraine has no military potential to release the people in Crimea and restore territorial integrity. It would be very difficult to achieve this goal by military force.

“But it’s not just a problem of the constitution of Ukraine that means no Ukrainian president can agree to legitimise the occupation of Crimea.

“It’s even more of a problem for international law. If Russia achieves its goal of getting legitimisation of its occupation by force, it ruins the international order that has been in place since the second world war.

“It will open a path to hell because there are, in different parts of the globe, other leaders who want to change the state borders and rewrite the principle of state sovereignty for their neighbours.

“The last time the world violated these international principles, it led to the second world war. When you live in a world without such rules, it’s always a world of wars and great violence.”

Matviichuk won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work in 2022, eight years after demanding help for Ukraine from then US president Joe Biden as he visited her country.

She wants greater focus on what will happen to the millions of Ukrainians currently living under Russian occupation and the tens of thousands of children who have been taken from their homes and handed to Russian families.

The human rights leader said she has personally interviewed hundreds of people who have been kept in Russian captivity and heard how they were beaten, tortured and raped.

But Matviichuk believes even now, Russia does not really care about making a deal.

She said: “Putin did not start this large-scale war because he wants to occupy a small part of Ukrainian land.

“He started this war because he wants to achieve his geopolitical goals. His logic is historical. He dreams about his legacy.

“He wants to occupy and destroy the whole country and then go further. He wants to forcibly restore the Russian empire.

“We have to accept that without security guarantees, there will always be a threat and there will be no sustainable peace.”

Presidents met for 15 minutes

The presidents met at St Peter’s Basilica for about 15 minutes and agreed to continue negotiations later in the day, Ukrainian presidential spokesman Serhii Nykyforov said.

White House communications director Steven Cheung said they “had a very productive discussion”.

It came as three people were killed overnight by Russian attacks across Ukraine.

Two people died in a strike on the town of Yarova in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, local governor Vadym Filashkin said in a post on social media.

Another person died in the Dnipropetrovsk region, said governor Serhiy Lysak.

Six people were injured, including an 88-year-old woman and an 11-year-old girl, he said.