Poland proposes UN mandate for Crimea to ensure fair referendum

Poland's Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski has suggested placing the temporarily Russian-controlled Crimea under a United Nations mandate to facilitate a "fair referendum."

He highlighted that Crimea holds significant symbolic value for Russian President Vladimir Putin and is also strategically important for Ukraine, Caliber.Az reports via Ukrainian media.

Consequently, Sikorski believes that a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia is improbable without the demilitarisation of the peninsula.

"If both countries agree, a solution could be found," said the Polish minister.

"We could place Crimea under a UN mandate with a mission to organise a fair referendum after determining who the legitimate residents are, and so on. This process could be extended by up to 20 years," Sikorski said.

Notably, Crimea is a peninsula on the northern coast of the Black Sea and an autonomous Russian-speaking republic of Ukraine.

March 18 marks the tenth anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea following the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in Donbas, a conflict that has taken some 14,000 lives.

Crimea in 2014 had an ethnic Russian majority of about 60 per cent — the only part of Ukraine where ethnic Russians constituted the majority.