KIEV, Feb. 23 – Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has pledged to return Crimea to Ukrainian control.

"The Ukrainian state will regain control over this temporarily occupied territory. I am not saying that this will be a simple thing to do which we will go through quickly. But this will happen by all means. Together we will build a new Crimea, where the rights and interests of Crimea's indigenous population and of all residents irrespective of their ethnicity, language and religion, will be guaranteed," Poroshenko said in an appeal to the Ukrainian people issued in Kiev on Monday.

Poroshenko said that on February 23, 1918 "Moscow Bolsheviks in Crimea ... executed the outstanding Crimean Tatar activist, co-founder and Chairman of the National Kurultai, the Mufti of Muslims of Crimea, the author of the Crimean Tatar national anthem.