KYIV, Aug 19 - President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has lamented that the crisis in Crimea has fallen from global attention, and he pledged to "raise from the knees" the fate of the Black Sea peninsula annexed by Russia seven years ago, RFE/RL reported.

In an interview with Ukrainian media, Zelenskiy said he also wants to raise awareness of residents, including Crimean Tatars and others, who have been detained or prosecuted by the region's Russian-backed administration.

"A big victory for us is to raise this issue from its knees, which simply does not exist in the [media] landscape," Zelenskiy said in the interview which took place on August 9 on Zmiyiniy Island, a rocky Black Sea islet some 300 kilometers from the shores of Crimea.

Zelenskiy spoke days before his government convenes a multinational meeting in Kyiv featuring representatives of 40 countries. The gathering, called Crimea Platform, is set to coincide with events to mark 30 years of Ukrainian independence.

Russia took control of Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014 after sending in troops, seizing key facilities, and staging a referendum dismissed as illegal by more than 100 countries. A month later, war broke out in eastern Ukraine, pitting Ukrainian government forces against Kremlin-backed separatists in a conflict that has killed more than 13,200 people to date.

Rights groups and Western governments have denounced what they describe as a campaign of repression by Russian authorities targeting members of the Turkic-speaking Crimean Tatar community and others who have spoken out against Moscow's takeover of the peninsula.

Zelenskiy said many around the world knew of the fate of Oleh Sentsov, the filmmaker who served five years in a Russian prison before being released in 2019 as part of a prisoner exchange.

But Zelenskiy argued that most people in the West were unaware of the plight of others in Crimea who face persecution, such as Server Mustafayev, who was among a group of seven Crimean Tatars handed lengthy prison terms by a Russian court in September 2020.

All were found guilty of being members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamic group that is banned in Russia but is legal in Ukraine.

Despite international pressure, Russia has rejected all talk of returning Crimea to Ukraine; Moscow spent billions of dollars building a massive bridge linking the peninsula directly to the Russian mainland. Russia's Black Sea naval fleet is based at the historic Crimea port of Sevastopol.

Still, Kyiv is hoping the Crimea Platform meeting in Kyiv will provide a "mechanism" to pressure Moscow, according to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.

Asked if he was disappointed that only 40 countries would attend the Kyiv forum, given that more than 100 refuse to recognize Moscow's seizure of Crimea, Zelenskiy argued that this was an "incorrect comparison."

"All these countries, 100 and more, support Crimea (as part of Ukraine); they continue to support us, and that number has not dropped," Zelenskiy told reporters. "The question is whether these 100 countries will support us with sanctions [against Russia]; they are ready to support us with statements, that 'We understand,' that they consider it an occupation, this annexation, but nothing more." (rfe/ez)