Putin recognizes Crimea’s independence from Ukraine

MOSCOW, Mar 18 (PRIME) -- President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree to recognize independence of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine following a referendum which overwhelmingly voted for joining Russia, RIA Novosti reported late Monday.

“Taking into account the expression of the Crimean population’s will at the all-Crimea referendum held on March 16, 2014, I am ordering to recognize the Republic of Crimea, where the city of Sevastopol has a separate status, as a sovereign and independent state. This decree will come in force on the date of signing,” according to the decree.

At the referendum 96.77% of voters stood for accessing Russia while Kiev is ruled by an interim government established amid violent protests.

On Tuesday, at 3.00 p.m. Moscow time Putin will speak to both chambers of the parliament on the fate of the peninsula.

According to Sergei Naryshklin, speaker of the State Duma lower house of parliament, Putin will ask the Constitutional Court whether it is lawful to give the Crimea a green light to join Russia.

“The recognition of independence is a step to further proceedings prescribed by the federal constitutional law on the inclusion of new territories into Russia,” Dmitry Vyatkin, a State Duma representative in the Constitutional Court, said.

The Crimea will sort out all issues with tax payment in April, Crimea’s First Deputy Prime Minister Rustam Temirgaliyev said in an interview to Rossiyskaya Gazeta. “I think that April will be a month of setting the rules, when the most difficult and important legal issues must be established, including taxation.”

Russia’s Regional Development Minister Igor Slyunyayev said in an interview to Kommersant business newspaper that it will take two to three years to fully integrate the Crimea to Russia.

According to Temirgaliyev, the Crimea’s economy is self-sufficient because of a high tourist inflow and natural resource development, and the peninsula will support other Russian regions.

On Monday, the E.U. and the U.S. applied the first sanctions against Russian and Crimean officials “guilty of breaking Ukraine’s territorial integrity”. Temirgaliyev, Prime Minister Sergei Aksyonov, several Russian senators and State Duma deputies together with CEOs of Russia’s largest monopolies, will be denied the E.U. and U.S. visas, while their assets and accounts in the U.S. will be arrested.

Washington and Brussels reserve the right to impose further sanctions on Russia.

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