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Crimea and Sevastopol

Ukrainian diplomat says Scooter may be brought to account for visiting Crimea

Scooter came to Crimea to take part in #ZBFest festival in Sevastopol

© Alexandr Ruyimin/TASS

KIEV, August 4. /TASS/. Member of Germany’s music group Scooter may be held criminally liable for visiting Crimea, Ukraine’s Ambassador to Germany Andrey Melnik said on Friday.

"Scooter illegally came to Crimea, despite our warnings! It’s a pity. Very soon we’ll have to put H.P. Baxxter and the company out of humor. Ukrainian prosecutors are probing the Scooter case, so the criminal proceedings may have very painful consequences for the musicians," the diplomat said on Facebook.

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According to the Weekly Mirror daily, Ukraine’s Deputy Prosecutor General Yevgeny Yenin earlier stated that the musicians might be sentenced to up to eight years of imprisonment if they came to Crimea, violating, thus, Ukraine’s laws.

Scooter came to Crimea to take part in #ZBFest festival in Sevastopol. The festival’s platform in Balaklava will present Garik Sukachev, Brigada S, Sergey Galanin and the Serga group, Sergey Shnurov and the Leningrad group, Dima Bilan, the Gradusy group and other artists on August 4 and 5. In the summer of 2016, the festival, which aimed to popularize Crimea as a fashionable tourist destination and a cultural, gastronomical and social center, gathered 15,000 guests.

After Kiev’s coup d’etat in February 2014, Crimea’s and Sevastopol’s authorities decided to hold a referendum on reunification with Russia. More than 80% of people who have the voting right took part in the vote on March 16, 2014. A total of 96.7% and 95.6% of residents in Crimea and Sevastopol respectively voted for reunification with Russia.

Russia’s president signed an agreement to make Crimea and Sevastopol part of Russia on March 18, and on March 21 the document was ratified by the Federal Assembly. Despite the referendum’s convincing results, Kiev refused to recognize Crimea as part of Russia.

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Crimea and Sevastopol

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