On March 8, 2014, 13 photogrammetric centers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were stormed in Simferopol. Ensign Serhiy Kokurin was killed and another officer was wounded during a storming of a Ukrainian military unit by Russian sniper bullets. This is the first Ukrainian serviceman to die at the hands of the Russian occupiers, although Putin has repeatedly publicly stated his “peaceful accession”. But there was resistance then, and it continues now.

At the same time, the so-called “Agreement on the Acceptance of the Republic of Crimea into the Russian Federation” was signed at the Kremlin. The signing of the agreement was based on the results of a so-called “referendum” held in Crimea on March 16, 2014.

The “referendum” on the status of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea was held in the absence of official observers from the UN, CIS, EU and OSCE and under the occupation. At the same time, most UN member states and other international organizations have recognized the Crimean “referendum” as illegitimate, which violates the Constitution of Ukraine and the basic international principles of territorial integrity and sovereignty of international law.

Since then, the compulsory enrollment of Ukrainian citizens to the citizenship of other country in the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol has begun.

The world community has refused to consider legitimate both the referendum and its “legal” enshrinement in the treaty of accession and the temporary occupation of the territory of Crimea by the Russian Federation. Personal and economic sanctions were imposed.

Photo: Maxim Koshelev.