This audiovisual interview also represents an opportunity to return to an incident that occurred at the start of her mandate: the controversy surrounding her trip to Crimea in 2021, with a visa issued by Russia, while she was still a journalist.
Hadja Lhabib also says that she did not understand the controversy. “Because it was known for a year“, she explains.”It was a trip that I made as a documentary filmmaker, journalist, which dates from a year ago and from which I have never hidden.“
This does not mean that I recognized this annexation
“It was not going to Ukraine with a Russian visa, but going to Crimea with a Russian visa“. In occupied territory… but “that does not mean that I recognized this annexation“, she adds. The Minister of Foreign Affairs therefore believes that she did not commit any fault at that time, “not as a journalist“.
Hadja Lhabib also intends to go there: “I said it from the start, I want to go to Ukraine to show my support. But this trip must also be meaningful. We are therefore in the process of identifying several projects that we wish to support.“The agendas must therefore still agree, but”there was an official invitation, launched moreover by the Ukrainian Prime Minister.“