Crimea

by Giacomo Liverani

After months of clashes in Kiev, Ukraine has to deal with a hard political and social situation in the South and East part of the country. In Simferopol, county town of the Crimea peninsula, armed men occupied the Rada, building of the Supreme Council of Crimea, on February 27th .  

On March 1st the Russian Federation started to occupy Crimea and took its troops in the Ukrainian region. On March 11th , 2014, amidst the 2014 Crimean crisis, the Crimean parliament and the Sevastopol City Council issued a letter of intent to unilaterally declare independence from Ukraine. While the Russian Federation’s troops were taking control of the peninsula and surroundings Ukrainian military bases, Crimea voted, on March 16th, in favor of Crimea’ s independence from Ukraine and joined Russia as a federal subject with a large majority. The European Union, Canada, Japan and the United States condemned the vote as illegal. President Vladimir Putin accepted the annexation of Independent Crimea to the Russian Federation. Now, in other regions of Ukraine, pro-Russian supporters want to annex to Russia asking for other referendums.  Ukraine is now the field of change of a new international political equilibrium between Eastern and Western countries.