Ukraine offers healthcare, online schooling to residents in annexed Crimea

KYIV (Reuters) – Ukraine’s government on Wednesday approved a series of measures aimed at restoring control over Crimea, including offering medical care and online education classes to schoolchildren living in the territory annexed by Russia in 2014.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wants to keep international attention on the fate of Crimea and thwart attempts by Russia to legitimise its takeover of the area. Relations between Kyiv and Moscow plummeted after the annexation and the outbreak of war between Ukrainian troops and Russian-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine, which Kyiv says has killed 14,000 in the past seven years.

Under the new measures, Ukraine will offer online education classes to Crimean school children and invite them to participate in summer holiday camps. Crimean residents may also receive online medical consultations or can travel to Kyiv-controlled territory for care. Southern regions bordering Crimea will receive new roads and more state funding for services such as COVID testing and vaccination centres – to make it easier for residents to cross into Kyiv-controlled areas.

Ukraine will also roll out new ways to monitor what it says are human rights abuses committed by the Russian authorities in Crimea. Moscow has denied such violations in the past. “We approve comprehensive documents that contain detailed steps for de-occupation, involve the best experts and analysts from around the world,” Prime Minister Denys Shmygal told a televised government meeting.

“We also work with our partner countries and within international organizations to ensure that the topic of Crimea is constantly on the global agenda.” Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014 drew Western sanctions. Western countries and most of the rest of the world recognise the Black Sea peninsula as Ukrainian. Russia justified the takeover by the need to protect the ethnic Russian population there.