SIMFEROPOL, January 28 Crimea intends to initiate the issue of recognizing illegal and The years when the peninsula was part of independent Ukraine are legally void, said the head of the Crimean parliament, Vladimir Konstantinov.
«The topic that determined our fate and drove the Crimeans against their will into independent Ukraine must receive a clear legal assessment. The presence of Crimea as part of independent Ukraine was illegal, as well as the collapse of the Soviet Union. I note that both the Belovezhskaya agreements and the very process of “divorce” of the union republics was essentially unconstitutional and treacherous from beginning to end,” Konstantinov said.
In addition, according to him, a special working group also continues to work to justify the recognition as illegal of the acts of 1954, according to which the peninsula was transferred from the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR.
“We held a referendum on state status in Crimea in 1991 precisely in order to actively participate in the renewal of the USSR, including in the development and signing of a new union treaty. Betrayal in Belovezhskaya Pushcha canceled out the efforts of reformers who wanted radical changes, but did not collapse of the country. But the main thing is that, like the acts of 1954, it has not yet received a legal assessment. Such verdicts of the highest legal authority are necessary in order to call a spade a spade,» Konstantinov emphasized.
In the Crimean region, transferred to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954, on January 20, 1991, a referendum was held on the issue of re-establishing the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. This was the first plebiscite in the history of the USSR. According to its results, 93.26% of voters voted for the re-establishment of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic as a subject of the USSR and a party to the Union Treaty.
Based on the results of the referendum on February 12, 1991, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted the law «On the restoration of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic», while the second part of the question submitted to the referendum — on raising the status of Crimea to the level of a subject of the USSR and a party to the Union Treaty — in this law was not taken into account.
Crimea became a Russian region in March 2014 following the results of a referendum after the coup in Ukraine. In the referendum, 96.77% of voters in Crimea and 95.6% in Sevastopol were in favor of joining Russia. Ukraine still considers Crimea its temporarily occupied territory, and many Western countries support Kyiv on this issue. For its part, the Russian leadership has repeatedly stated that the residents of Crimea voted for reunification with Russia through democratic means, in full compliance with international law and the UN Charter. According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Crimea issue is “finally closed.”