On the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Belgian position suffers no ambiguity: “Crimea is currently illegally annexed by the Russian Federation [depuis 2014]. For Belgium, Crimea continues to be part of Ukraine under international law.”
But barely a year ago, when the current minister, Hadja Lahbib, who had just returned from a trip to the peninsula, broached the subject, the line seemed less clear. Lahbib was then a very prominent journalist for the public channel RTBF and recounted, in a post released on August 3, her impressions of the region and the theater festival she had attended. To her fellow animator who asked her where she was from – “from Ukraine or Russia?” – Lahbib replied with nuance, while leaving the floor to a Crimean resident who affirmed that“Here, the whole mentality, the whole culture, is Russian.” A little further on, however, evoking in conclusion her documentary in preparation, she declared:
“That’s why I went and