“Just look at what is happening in Donbass,” the president said the day before, referring to the clashes between nationalist battalions against the militias of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics and the attacks by the Ukrainian armed forces against the region. .
Putin has also denounced how in these years the population of those territories in eastern Ukraine suffered persecution, assassinations of their leaders, as well as measures against the use of the Russian language and promoting relations with this country.
During a videoconference meeting on the socioeconomic development of Crimea and Sevastopol, the president recalled that in February and March 2014 their residents confronted “the neo-Nazis and other radicals who perpetrated the coup in kyiv.”
In the context of the political crisis and a violent change of power in Ukraine, on March 11 of that year the Supreme Council of Crimea and the Sevastopol City Council approved a declaration of independence for the peninsula.
Five days later, a referendum was held in which more than 80 percent of the voters participated, the more than 50 percent required for the count to be considered valid.
The ballots were printed in the Russian, Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar languages. More than 50 observers from 21 countries, including Israel, France and Italy, monitored the vote.
The results showed that 96.77 percent of the participants from the Republic of Crimea and 95.6 percent from Sevastopol voted for reunification with Russia.
On March 18, 2014, President Putin signed the Treaty on the Admission of the Republic of Crimea to Russia and on the Formation of New Subjects within the Federation, while on March 21, the document was ratified by the Federal Assembly (Parliament) From Russia.
However, the Government of Ukraine continues to consider Crimea as part of its territory, temporarily occupied, which is why the peninsula has become a source of constant conflict between kyiv and Moscow during these eight years.
Such a position has been supported since 2014 by the European Union (EU) and the United States, which do not recognize its independence or reunification, a decision that they supported with the approval of economic sanctions packages against Russia.
The EU applied two rounds of measures against Moscow in July and September 2014, which have been rolling out ever since, covering the financial, energy and defense sectors, as well as dual-use items.
In response, Moscow embargoed agri-food imports from those countries, a black list that is maintained and includes meat, dairy, fish, shellfish, fruits, vegetables and nuts.
The Russian authorities repeatedly claimed that the people of Crimea, in a democratic manner, in full compliance with international law and the Charter of the United Nations, voted in favor of reunification with Russia.
At this time, the issue of the recognition of Crimea as part of Russia appears among the conditions that Moscow demands from kyiv for the solution of the bilateral conflict and the cessation of the military operation that began on February 24.
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