On March 16, 2014, Russia held a “referendum on the status of Crimea,” which was illegal from the point of view of the international community. Official Minsk, like most countries of the world, did not recognize its results. After the annexation of Crimea, Western countries imposed tough sanctions against Moscow, and the Russian leadership set a course for consistent self-isolation.
After the shooting of the Heavenly Hundred at Euromaidan, on the night of February 22-23, Russia conducted a planned operation to evacuate the former President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, to Rostov-on-Don. The order was issued personally by Vladimir Putin.
On March 1, the Federation Council of the Russian Federation granted Putin’s appeal to allow the use of Russian troops in Ukraine. This was done after the fact, since at the end of February the so-called “green men” — Russian soldiers without identification marks — occupied key military units on the peninsula to force the Ukrainian military to cooperate and go to the side of Russia. They refused, but the units were already blocked by the Russians.
On March 16, 2014, a “referendum” on the status of Crimea was held, where the question of the peninsula joining the Russian Federation was put to the vote. Then, according to calculations illegitimate from the point of view of the Ukrainian legislation of the CEC, 96.6% of the participants were in favor of joining Russia.
The vast majority of UN member states did not recognize the “referendum” as a legal will expression. When considering the situation in Crimea in the UN Security Council, thirteen countries supported the draft resolution, according to which the procedure did not have legal force, but Russia vetoed this resolution. Later, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution in which it stated that a referendum in Crimea was held illegally and could not be a reason for changing the status of the peninsula. Belarus has always voted against the resolution on Crimea, which caused justified discontent in Kyiv.
On March 18, 2014, Putin, Prime Minister of the self-proclaimed Republic of Crimea Aksenov, Chairman of the newly formed “State Council” of Crimea Konstantinov and a representative of the separatist leadership of Sevastopol, a citizen of the Russian Federation Chaly, signed the so-called “Agreement on the Admission of Crimea to Russia” on March 18, 2014 in the St. George Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace.”
The annexation was accompanied by a massive migration of pro-Ukrainian locals to the settlements controlled by the Ukrainian authorities. Russia began persecuting Crimean Tatars, representatives of the Mejlis organization on the annexed peninsula — they have been punished with long prison terms in fabricated cases. In general, over the past 5 years, the human rights situation in Crimea has deteriorated significantly.
After the annexation of Crimea, the United States and the European Union imposed sanctions against Russia.
