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Tensions in Crimea soar

ALEXANDROVA Lyudmila 
However, Russian experts are in no mood of over-dramatizing the situation

MOSCOW, February 27. /ITAR-TASS/. The situation in Ukraine’s Crimean autonomy and around it is getting ever more strained. However, Russian experts are in no mood of over-dramatizing the situation. They believe the current developments are unlikely to have any far-reaching effects.

Early Thursday morning the buildings of the Crimean parliament and the Council of Ministers were seized by a group of people in uniform without any insignia. The Russian flag was hoisted over the legislature’s building. A short while later, reports arrived that both buildings were under the control of the Russian-speaking population’s self-defense units. Such groups are said to be emerging spontaneously all over the peninsula and moving towards the autonomy’s capital - Simferopol.

The Ukrainian security service on Wednesday opened a criminal case over preparations for an encroachment against the territorial integrity of the country in the wake of the latest developments in the Crimean parliament. However, the speaker of the Crimean legislature, Vladimir Konstantinov, on Thursday came out with a statement to declare that “the Crimean parliament does not consider the Crimea’s secession from Ukraine. He dismissed such claims as a “provocation aimed at discrediting the autonomy’s parliament and strip it of legitimacy.”

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