Top British Diplomat: ‘Russia Must Return Crimea To Ukraine
By RFE/RL
Britain’s top diplomat says Russia "must return Crimea to Ukraine," calling the Kremlin’s forcible annexation of the Black Sea peninsula last year "completely unacceptable."
"The annexation of Crimea was illegal and illegitimate in March 2014, and remains illegal and illegitimate in March 2015," British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said in March 22 comments posted on the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office’s website.
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine after sending troops there and staging a secession referendum on March 16, 2014, that was declared illegal in an overwhelming vote in the UN.
Hammond called the referendum a "sham" and a "fig leaf" for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s "land grab."
Putin said on March 18 that the annexation was necessary to protect ethnic Russians in Crimea and reclaim Russia’s "historic roots."
That concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for today. Check back here on Monday morning for more of our continuing coverage.
By RFE/RL
Ukrainian authorities say a son of former President Viktor Yanukovych has died after a minivan he was driving plunged into Russia's Lake Baikal.
Anton Herashchenko, a lawmaker and aide to Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, said on Facebook on March 22 that the ousted former leader's younger son, also named Viktor, "died tragically today."
He said the minivan Yanukovych was driving plunged through ice and sank in the Siberian lake after falling over onto the driver's side.
Herashchenko said all five passengers in the minivan survived and "four of them didn't even get their feet wet."
Nestor Shufrych, a Ukrainian parliament deputy from the Opposition Bloc, gave a similar account on Facebook.
There was no confirmation from Russian authorities.
The younger Yanukovych, 33, was reportedly going by the name of Viktor Davydov.
The senior Yanukovych and most of his family have lived in Russia since was he chased from office in February 2014 after months of protests over his decision to reject a deal tightening ties with the EU and turn toward Moscow.
With reporting by Interfax, AP, BBC, Dozhd, and SiberianTimes.com
Far-right figures from Europe and the United States and nationalist supporters of Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized the West at a forum in St. Petersburg.
Participants at the Russian International Conservative Forum on March 22 condemned Western governments' stances on the conflict in Ukraine and praised what they described as Moscow's efforts to promote "traditional values."
Nick Griffin, the expelled former leader of the anti-immigrant British National Party, Udo Voigt, a senior figure in Germany's neo-Nazi fringe National Democratic Party, and members of the neo-Nazi Greek party Golden Dawn were among some 200 participants.
Griffin said that U.S. leaders "and their puppets in the European Union are doing everything they can...to drag us into a terrible war" between government forces and Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
The gathering, which was halted by what authorities said was a bomb threat, drew criticism inside and outside Russia.
Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny wrote on Twitter: "The fascists have strangely and very quickly turned into Russia's friends."
Dozens of antifascist activists protested against the forum, and police detained eight of them.