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Russia may demand Kiev’s compensation for damage to Crimea at highest level - MP

Earlier the speaker of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin proposed to oblige Ukraine to offset to the Crimea economic losses from stay in its structure

Chairman of the Russian State Duma’s International Affairs Committee Leonid Slutsky Mikhail Klimentiev/Russia's presidential press service/TASS

Chairman of the Russian State Duma’s International Affairs Committee Leonid Slutsky

© Mikhail Klimentiev/Russia's presidential press service/TASS

MOSCOW, March 17. /TASS/. Russia may demand Kiev compensate for its economic damage to Crimea inflicted when the peninsula was part of Ukraine at the highest international level, Chairman of the Russian State Duma’s International Affairs Committee Leonid Slutsky told reporters on Sunday.

"I think we will definitely declare our position at all international and interparliamentary platforms, conferences and forums, at the highest level. The international community should understand that Crimea really lost a lot during these 23 years of being part of Ukraine," Slutsky stressed.

Russian State Duma (the lower house of parliament) Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin earlier suggested using European parliamentary institutions to make Kiev offset the losses Crimea suffered as part of Ukraine. Crimean Head Sergey Aksyonov told reporters on Saturday that a joint group of the State Duma and Crimea’s parliament, the State Council, would start assessing the damage, which the peninsula had sustained from being part of Ukraine, in the coming month.

Crimea’s reunification with Russia

The Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol, a city with a special status on the Crimean Peninsula where most residents are ethnic Russians, refused to recognize the legitimacy of the authorities that came to power amid riots during the February 2014 coup in Ukraine.

Crimea and Sevastopol adopted declarations of independence on March 11, 2014. They held a referendum on March 16, 2014, in which 96.77% of Crimeans and 95.6% of Sevastopol voters chose to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation. President Vladimir Putin signed the reunification treaty on March 18, 2014.

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