Crimea. Archival photoSIMFEROPOL, May 8. The head of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, believes that negotiations on the status of the republic with the Ukrainian authorities are useless, de facto Crimea is a full-fledged region of Russia. «There is a stable situation in Crimea, peaceful life, we are a full-fledged Russian region. Our leader said clearly, the issue of Crimea is unequivocally closed once and for all. My personal opinion as a person, as a citizen: all negotiations (with Kyiv — ed.) are useless. They are controlled completely from abroad, but today we understand that It is not Ukraine or Ukrainians that resists us. It is the United States, it is NATO,» Aksyonov told RIA Novosti. Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine on February 24. President Vladimir Putin called its goal «the protection of people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kyiv regime for eight years.» For this, according to him, it is planned to carry out «demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine», to bring to justice all war criminals responsible for «bloody crimes against civilians» in Donbass. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the Armed Forces strike only at military infrastructure and Ukrainian troops and , on March 25, completed the main tasks of the first stage — significantly reduced the combat potential of Ukraine. The main goal in the Russian military department was called the liberation of Donbass.
