The Presidential Commissioner on Crimean Tatar Affairs Mustafa Dzhemilev said in the interview with New Eastern Europe that sanctions introduced against Russia will come into play in the near future.
“It is expected that sanctions will be so effective that Russia will be forced to leave this (the Crimean peninsula – Editor’s note) territory. After my conversation with Putin, I went to Brussels, NATO headquarters, where we discussed this situation. I was a keynote speaker. We discussed the sanction scales against Russia. I was told that such measures were taken in 1979 as well, when Russia invaded Afghanistan. But it took about 10 years till the collapse of the Soviet Union to wait while sanctions worked. Do we have the time to wait so long to see Ukraine as a free country? It is unlikely that I will live so long,” Dzhemilev said.
“In Brussels they said that the current events would move dynamically,” Mustafa Agha added.
Dzhemilev explained that Europe and Russia are tightly correlated by trading contracts and gas, so drastic steps may result in damaging the economy of Western countries. However, if more drastic measures are not taken now, further it will only get worse.
“We realize that such drastic steps may result in damaging the economy of Western countries. However, if this price for peace and security is not paid now, then they will have to pay tenfold in the future,” he said.
